Naggy/Vox Item Cheatsheet

[Malleria]

its really nice that with each one of these new expansions they eliminate the gap between the groupers and the raiders. It is a great idea and way to keep new players able to join the core raiding game.

It's likely to have the opposite effect really. The group players that want to raid don't really have any blocks atm, all they need to do is apply to a raiding guild, and will in most cases atleast be given a trial period. This new gear will show people they don't have to raid to get raid gear, and so, iffy about committing to raid schedules, they'll just stay as groupers.

Though, I don't subscribe to the theory of this loot "killing raiding". Raiding isn't just about the loot, its the enjoyment of playing with 53 other players and taking down a tough boss. If someone is apping to my guild just for the loot, it's likely going to show, and they won't make a good impression.

[qibrme]

My complaint is not about the quality of the loot, because IMO if they did not make the loot at the quality it is, then no raiders would ever bother doing the missions, and making it so you have to repeat then several times in order to accumulate enough points to buy gear makes it more likely that groups will be available for a while.

My complaint is that there is false advertising.
They say that you are being sent back to play your toon as it was at lvl 50.
So six of us got together to try a mission after raids on the night of the patch.
Sony does it again.
It is a stupid monster mission (which i hate) where each player has to pick from a list of available characters and only use spells and abilities from an AA list with hot buttons.
We had 2 magicians, I clicked the mage 1st so the other mage had to play a shammy and most of the group played monster toons that were not the same as their mains.

Why couldn't they just block out all your actual spells and abilities that have a level requirement above level 50.
Give level appropriate gear and make the mission an actual challenging level 50 event.
If you have leveled your toon past 50, and especially if you are lvl 85, you should know you class well enough to fight better than you could when you were actually lvl 50.
There should have been challenges to make you think and mobs that could tear up level 50 toons.
You should also be able to enter the missions with any combination of player characters YOU want to bring -- like 5 clerics and a Paladin -- if you so choose or if that is the make up of your normal exp group.

Instead we get boring mobs to the point where I was tanking dark blue con Kobolds in Nagafen's Lair as a level 50 mage. -- not my pet tanking them, but my actual mage toon tanking -- and without heals when the mob was solo.
No way in the world a real level 50 tanks blue con mobs.

Mission became boring in less than 15 minutes and we did what i assume everyone else does which is invis past all the trash and only fight the nameds on the list in order to get task updates.
I don't remember having OOC med at lvl 50 and when i cast invis on a player, his toon bar became dark in the group window, but I could still see him because Sony did not take the time to block my actual see invis AA that is on my real character.
I bet there were most likely other AA's or abilities working for us that caused the content to be so easy.

In the MM's everyone is equal as far as gear goes.
Only your game smarts can separate you from others.
Make the missions challenging enough to warrant the rewards.
That way a non-raider can, if she/he is a talented enough player, obtain the uber loot with their heads held high.
Just because a person raids does not necessarily make them a better player.
The only difference that i see between group and raid content is that group mobs can be overpowered by raid geared toon in order to make up any difference in skill that the group geared players would need to actually win the event on their own.
Raids are tuned so that an end game guild might be able to overpower the 1st tier of new content but eventually have to start thinking about new ways of using the skills and player abilities they have in order to win.
But all of EQ becomes boring once you figure out the trick to winning an event becaue there is no randomness to encounters -- so group or raid it all gets boring once you are in farm mode.

Sony has always been lazy IMO when it comes to creating new content and they more often than not simply put a different shade of lipstick on old content.

Sued...

[Danille]

its really nice that with each one of these new expansions they eliminate the gap between the groupers and the raiders. It is a great idea and way to keep new players able to join the core raiding game.

i agree to an extent but why should groupers get such raid quality when its taken most of us weeks months and even years to get raid quality gear?

Because the developers would like to blur the line between a hard core raiding game and a casual game. They want two different ways for players to experience success in the game. The days of EQ being a hard core raiding game are long gone. Does it have content for hard core raiders? You bet! Does it deny everyone who is not a hard core raider from enjoying all of the benefits that the game has to offer? Not any more!

[Zacatac]

As a casual player and part-time raider, I can say this doesn't affect me in the slightest. I have no plans to spend hours grinding boring monster missions.

As to the quality of gear, you have to remember many "groupers" have full sets of T5 level gear now. While I agree the stuff is too powerful now, in order to make this stuff an upgrade it has to be at least 750 h/m/e or better. If they nerf it down to say 700, nobody will do them.

[Ghem and Boo]

Its about time they have group gear on this level. Raiders still have the best gear and are crying now because they are not 10 times better then those lesser beings that don't raid?! SMURF THEM!!!

[Malleria]

Group gear is balanced against group content. Better gear just means proportionally harder content, at which point you've really gained nothing. So comparing group gear and raid gear isn't relevant to anything.

[Zatpus]

Group gear is balanced against group content. Better gear just means proportionally harder content, at which point you've really gained nothing. So comparing group gear and raid gear isn't relevant to anything.

Almost .. there are always a view causing bad karma to a whole group.

I remember beeing in FOS and have a single monk KS'ing a whole group multiple times to gear his twink. In tells he even had no problem to admit it. It has been like "out of 4 named I KSed only 3, I could have taken the forth as well, so be quiet". Reporting and sending tells to his guilds officers didn't archieve nothing. It seems like recruiting today really got hard. So it may happen that even big guilds tolerate such behavior prior to risk that someone who might be good at playing his char on raids get upset.

Tosk all center-named monopolized by a solo nec gearing his twink.

COD 4 way ...

When groupers are exploring trying to get upgrades for their main-chars and solo-Raiders are already there monopolizing an aerea it does make a big difference. If the difference in gear would't be as big as its now, maybe those few raiders behaving described as above wouldn't anymore be able to do what they want.

Most of the time when I approached with my group where another group has been around (no matter if groupers or raiders) between the groups there will be found an agreement to let one or two spawns taken by the arriving party, depends on the number of spawns in that aerea (ore vice versa). On averange people seem to be more social and more inclined to share when around with others.

If raiders would be excluded from all content groupers need to progress throught (atleast all non-instanced mobs) than you would be right with "comparing group gear and raid gear isn't relevant to anything".

Just to make it clear: thats not a crusade groupers vs raiders, it's just a view (for my feeling far less than 1%) raiders causing grief to the groupers, but when those are around they are powerful enought to destroy your evening.

[Malleria]

I never said raiders weren't overpowered for group content, but frankly, blame SOE for forcing raiders into group content. The fact still remains, group gear at its current power is correct for group content, and any increase would be overpowering groupers for the content. At which point, you become guilty of what you complain raiders do. So its true comparing group and raid gear is pointless, they're designed for different things.

A better solution is to allow raiders to get what they need by raiding. Be this in the form of increased experience from raid mobs or a grouping zone designed to be difficult that raiders can test their mettle in. The entire trash clear in Discord tower barely scrapes together a single AA, and is infinitely more challenging than anything the group game offers - explain that.

But ultimately, it's an MMO, and you're gonna have to accept that sometimes the camps you want are going to be taken by others. I can't count the number of times I've wanted the centre camp in Tosk, or 4way in Dranik, only to find it permanently locked down by groupers with no interest in sharing.

[Zatpus]

A better solution is to allow raiders to get what they need by raiding. Be this in the form of increased experience from raid mobs or a grouping zone designed to be difficult that raiders can test their mettle in.

What if the gap between gear would be narrowed so that next expansions group-content could be fun for a full group of raiders and groupers? Raider could go raiding and have fun in group-content with their mainchars instead of just twinking their alts.

Make stuff where groupers might not get in before done some month of progression and raiders would be able to go for earlier because they still would be ahead. If the gap of gear would not be as big at its now, it could be more than a zerg-throught for raiders also.

[Malleria]

The suggestion fails because of the tiered raid system EQ uses. Lets use SoD as an example: Oceangreen and Kith = Tier1, FoS = Tier2, Rathe and Korafax = Tier3, Tower = Tier4. Rathe and Korafax are *required* both to key for Tower, and to get visible essences that are later upgraded by the Tower essences. Now consider the MM loot tables that have been added were standard upper end group gear, coming in at or above Tier3 raid gear. There is now 0 motivation to do Tier1 or Tier2 - it's wasted content. Not only that, but the number of guilds eventually reaching Tier4 will likely decrease, as the upgrade from group gear to raid gear is so minimal (or non-existent in Tier3).

The only viable solution would be to make Tier4 either extremely easy to flag/key for (ie, doing the Tier3 raids once and ample backflags available in Tier4) or have it open immediately on launch. Underfoot is slated to last 18 months in total, with a content injection in April. Raiders are already bored out of their minds with the lack of content in SoD, and that has only had to last 12 months. No amount of Tier4 raid content is going to keep raiders interested for 18months - not even a GoD style expansion could do that. So having multiple Tiers of content is important to keep Raiders occupied, and slow their progression.

Multiple tiers of worthwhile raid content and closer gaps between group and raid gear are incompatible.