EQ TLP - Oakwynd (Evolving Ruleset Progression Server)

Cinge · Mar 20, 2023

Kharzette said:
What does the high elf ability do?

Self buff that makes you immune to any detrimental effects? That's my guess.

I would think "immune to magic" at the end, trumps them all though. Guess it needs to for that horrible race to be picked at all.

DickTrickle · Mar 21, 2023

Cinge said:
Self buff that makes you immune to any detrimental effects? That's my guess.

I would think "immune to magic" at the end, trumps them all though. Guess it needs to for that horrible race to be picked at all.

Or maybe sometime like canni damage.

Riposte immunity would be amazing for a tank, depending on if it is past the very early era.

Tuco · Mar 21, 2023

Secrets said:
We already tried that years ago with Classless 2.0, and the reality of such a system is that it doesn't fit the bill on EQ.

People need stuff to grind for and there needs to be an incentive for them to start over and/or go help their friends.
The EQ loop doesn't work fundamentally if you squire people up, but if you give them incentive to go through the hoops repeatedly and get benefits for doing so, that may work.

Make each playthrough different in some way. That's why Mischief worked so well - people liked the random loot which affected their subsequent playthroughs. It gave them a new goal (rares) to chase all over and they saw loot they didn't normally see from NPCs they would not normally chase after.

I know this is the TLP thread, but here's are some sample gameplay loop for some rando coming back to EQ on live who doesn't want to box 2 (or even 3 might be needed to level effectively depending on their class choices) characters:

Level 1: Get a journeyman merc tank, watch it obliterate everything around as you tag-a-long. Get massive XP, maybe get some gear, who cares about the gear because you level so quickly?

Level 65: Your journeyman merc tank has gotten shittier and shittier over the last 5 levels and you switch to killing stuff with a DPS or healer merc and depending on your class and it's terrrrible. You spend an hour grinding away to get fuck all. There is literally nobody you've ever seen play in one of the 20 different zones that are appropriate for your level so you advertise for a group the entire time. The only response you get from a non-afk player is that they are semi-afk and pulling entire zones to kill with their high level character. Instead you pay $$$ for a heroic boost to 100, surely that'll help?

Level 100: You've got a heroic char with pretty strong gear and are doing better but it's slow as fuck and everyone you find at your level is either in a box group that ignores you or is getting dragged through. You grind and grind in boring solitude until you get lucky and get a random invite to a Champion achievement train for ToV and ToL which gives massive leveling XP, bringing you to like, 114.

Level 114: You finally are high enough to find a group here or there, even if you're kind of a drag on some groups and a liability on others. You are told you get most leveling XP from completing quest achievements but the only groups you can find are grinding mobs for AAXP, but you keep at it to get high enough to do the ToV quests. You find a few friends in a similar situation, schedule some time to bang it out and even luck out to get a rando high level to help you through. Congratulations, you've made it to the non-terrible gameplay loops in Live EQ.

I say this as someone who has level a few different groups of characters to max level over the last ~5 years. I zoom through it because I have a really strong 6box and a bunch of high level chars to cheat. There is noooobody to level with until you get to a high level.

So, while the above is totally achievable, the problems are:

It's boring AF
It's literally harder to do than nearly anything else in the game. Joining an elite raid force and defeating the raid content is easier than grinding your way to 120 with no boxing or support structure
It's done by someone who probably has very little motivation to play the game, just wants to check out EQ finally or return for nostalgia and doesn't know shit about the game, getting further and further behind on knowing game mechanics the higher level they get carried.

It's bad enough that on live if someone isn't looking to box 2 or 3 characters I tell them to either join in on a TLP or play another game. My opinion is that having a squiring option where those gameplay loops are replaced with "find a high level player, squire up and then roll with them" is superior and would result in higher new/returning player retention.

Ritley · Mar 21, 2023

You forgot about the super fun overseer

Tuco · Mar 21, 2023

Ritley said:
You forgot about the super fun overseer

Lol, yeah. Add "login a couple times a day and collect your gerbil pellet, wondering wtf you're still playing a game you can't really *play*"

Animosity · Mar 21, 2023

Its pretty sad to see where live is at. I log in once and awhile, sit in the guild hall and do overseer. Everyone logged on is mostly a 3-5 boxer. So I log out.

Not to mention at 120 you have an overwhelming amount of disciplines and skills to even figure out whats viable.

Tuco · Mar 21, 2023

Animosity said:
Its pretty sad to see where live is at. I log in once and awhile, sit in the guild hall and do overseer. Everyone logged on is mostly a 3-5 boxer. So I log out.

As a boxer, EQ is kinda unique in being a party CRPG in an MMO with boxing. It's massive group synergy, non-movement combat and high mob difficulty ceiling is very different from every other MMO out there.

By high mob difficulty I mean that the # of mobs you can kill can scale very high. A few years ago I dusted off WoW and 2boxed a shadowpriest and fury warrior. They cooperate fairly well in that the fury warrior can deal a lot of damage if they are taking a lot of abuse and the shadowpriest can heal from damage, but I found that when going through level appropriate areas the short range and mob leashing made it impossible to really stress the group. Conversely, all the difficult content in instances involves a lot of movement that makes it annoying to box.

Secrets · Mar 21, 2023

Cinge said:
Self buff that makes you immune to any detrimental effects? That's my guess.

I would think "immune to magic" at the end, trumps them all though. Guess it needs to for that horrible race to be picked at all.

Immune to your own detrimental effects. It's a passive.
So canni won't cause damage, you can't be hit by your own rains, etc. It's a pretty safe passive. Manastone won't likely be ingame or on a cooldown due to the way we handle mana - it is supposed to be a finite resource and only used for healing.
Even caster nukes now use endurance, which regens to a max of 50% - your damage increases when your endurance is closer to 50%, giving a benefit to endurance regen. All former mana regens have been turned into endurance regens.

Immune to magic on Drakkin is a double edged sword - you can't be healed either, not even through your own lifetaps.
Drakkin are abominations and I'll always do something wacky with them.

The last implementation that featured drakkin racials was "equip this charm to become a drakkin, and you instantly die for making a terrible choice, and the charm is unequiped when you respawn."

They also had inverse HP regen, started with 1 in all stats, and their starting point was Erud's Crossing in the ocean with the only chance of escape being that you had a friend that took pity on you to keep you alive. You couldn't leave the water due to your stats, and unless you had a net beneficial movement speed, the server would reject future position updates while in water.

Pharone · Mar 21, 2023

Tuco said:
I know this is the TLP thread, but here's are some sample gameplay loop for some rando coming back to EQ on live who doesn't want to box 2 (or even 3 might be needed to level effectively depending on their class choices) characters:

Level 1: Get a journeyman merc tank, watch it obliterate everything around as you tag-a-long. Get massive XP, maybe get some gear, who cares about the gear because you level so quickly?

Level 65: Your journeyman merc tank has gotten shittier and shittier over the last 5 levels and you switch to killing stuff with a DPS or healer merc and depending on your class and it's terrrrible. You spend an hour grinding away to get fuck all. There is literally nobody you've ever seen play in one of the 20 different zones that are appropriate for your level so you advertise for a group the entire time. The only response you get from a non-afk player is that they are semi-afk and pulling entire zones to kill with their high level character. Instead you pay $$$ for a heroic boost to 100, surely that'll help?

Level 100: You've got a heroic char with pretty strong gear and are doing better but it's slow as fuck and everyone you find at your level is either in a box group that ignores you or is getting dragged through. You grind and grind in boring solitude until you get lucky and get a random invite to a Champion achievement train for ToV and ToL which gives massive leveling XP, bringing you to like, 114.

Level 114: You finally are high enough to find a group here or there, even if you're kind of a drag on some groups and a liability on others. You are told you get most leveling XP from completing quest achievements but the only groups you can find are grinding mobs for AAXP, but you keep at it to get high enough to do the ToV quests. You find a few friends in a similar situation, schedule some time to bang it out and even luck out to get a rando high level to help you through. Congratulations, you've made it to the non-terrible gameplay loops in Live EQ.

I say this as someone who has level a few different groups of characters to max level over the last ~5 years. I zoom through it because I have a really strong 6box and a bunch of high level chars to cheat. There is noooobody to level with until you get to a high level.

So, while the above is totally achievable, the problems are:

It's boring AF

It's literally harder to do than nearly anything else in the game. Joining an elite raid force and defeating the raid content is easier than grinding your way to 120 with no boxing or support structure

It's done by someone who probably has very little motivation to play the game, just wants to check out EQ finally or return for nostalgia and doesn't know shit about the game, getting further and further behind on knowing game mechanics the higher level they get carried.

It's bad enough that on live if someone isn't looking to box 2 or 3 characters I tell them to either join in on a TLP or play another game. My opinion is that having a squiring option where those gameplay loops are replaced with "find a high level player, squire up and then roll with them" is superior and would result in higher new/returning player retention.

I really wish they would build boxing INTO the game client itself. EverQuest is one of the best MMORPGs out there for boxing, if not THE best. You would think by now, they would realize that the game needs to be modified with boxing in mind from the get go.

pharmakos · Mar 21, 2023

Pharone said:
I really wish they would build boxing INTO the game client itself. EverQuest is one of the best MMORPGs out there for boxing, if not THE best. You would think by now, they would realize that the game needs to be modified with boxing in mind from the get go.

Wouldn't have been possible before the 64-bit upgrade. Wouldn't be surprised if they're kicking the idea around tho.

Tuco · Mar 21, 2023

Pharone said:
I really wish they would build boxing INTO the game client itself. EverQuest is one of the best MMORPGs out there for boxing, if not THE best. You would think by now, they would realize that the game needs to be modified with boxing in mind from the get go.

If all they did was allow you to pay double for a sub so you could login 2 characters on your account simultaneously it'd be pretty useful. It might decrease revenue because then people like me would be motivated to consolidate to fewer accounts, so we'd pay less per expansion. Alternatively there would be more people who would box because they could play existing characters.

I wouldn't trust them to build any kind of tools around it though.

pharmakos · Mar 21, 2023

Tuco said:
I wouldn't trust them to build any kind of tools around it though.

Half measure could be not consolidation to one account or one client, but baking things like broadcasting keystrokes right into the client so you don't need to use third party software. I feel like removing the need for third party software would get a lot of people who didn't box / only lightly boxed to start boxing more. And if they keep it to one account per active character theyd get more sub money, making it a profitable endeavor to code.

Tuco · Mar 21, 2023

pharmakos said:
Half measure could be not consolidation to one account or one client, but baking things like broadcasting keystrokes right into the client so you don't need to use third party software. I feel like removing the need for third party software would get a lot of people who didn't box / only lightly boxed to start boxing more. And if they keep it to one account per active character theyd get more sub money, making it a profitable endeavor to code.

Yeah. Adding key broadcasting to EQ clients would massively improve boxing QOL for all the plebs not using ISBoxer or MacroQuest2. I don't really trust DPG to do it though, and if they made vanilla boxing stronger it'd make non-boxers feel like they are being told they need to shell out more $$$ to box effectively. Still, I'd be in favor of it and think it'd increase revenue enough to be worth the investment.

Evernothing · Mar 21, 2023

pharmakos said:
Are Fabled raid mobs still a thing? Or whatever they were called?

Yes and no.

They still exist and appear every spring. However, they only go up to PoP.

Gates of Discord = Classic Fabled
Dragons of Norrath = Kunark Fabled
Prophecy of Ro = Velious Fabled
The Buried Sea = Luclin Fabled
Secrets of Faydwer = Planes of Power Fabled

pharmakos · Mar 21, 2023

Evernothing said:
Yes and no.

They still exist and appear every spring. However, they only go up to PoP.

Gates of Discord = Classic Fabled
Dragons of Norrath = Kunark Fabled
Prophecy of Ro = Velious Fabled
The Buried Sea = Luclin Fabled
Secrets of Faydwer = Planes of Power Fabled

They should have perennial Fabled on TLP. Give Zaide a new challenge.

Mrniceguy · Mar 21, 2023

Tuco said:
It's bad enough that on live if someone isn't looking to box 2 or 3 characters I tell them to either join in on a TLP or play another game. My opinion is that having a squiring option where those gameplay loops are replaced with "find a high level player, squire up and then roll with them" is superior and would result in higher new/returning player retention.

Nobody wants to learn to play a game where you have 27 hotbars and 465 abilities.

Arbitrary · Mar 21, 2023

Mrniceguy said:
Nobody wants to learn to play a game where you have 27 hotbars and 465 abilities.

When they first introduced their level 85 heroic characters and gave everyone one for free it was incomprehensible. The level cap is now what, 120? And a heroic character can start at 100? I'm not even sure where someone would go to get good information.

Secrets · Mar 21, 2023

Arbitrary said:
When they first introduced their level 85 heroic characters and gave everyone one for free it was incomprehensible. The level cap is now what, 120? And a heroic character can start at 100? I'm not even sure where someone would go to get good information.

They don't. Everyone who has the information won't have time to document it with how much game knowledge there is.

EQ2 has the same bloody issue. It's awful and has been needing addressed for over a decade now.

Rajaah · Mar 21, 2023

Pharone said:
If the content scales to what ever level you are, then what is the point in having a leveling system in the first place?

What else does Everquest have going for it? The armor never really changes, weapons barely change with most of the changes being just glow effects, there is no animation changes as you level up. The game literally is Levels, AAs, and Gear stats. That's it. Take away the importance of levels and AAs, and all you got left is gear stats, and I'm assuming that is a nothing burger as well because if a level 1 can play with a level 100, then the gear obviously is meaningless too.

This level scaling idea is the actual death of a game that has been undead for over a couple decades already. No need to send in the cleric because you can't rez this game if that's what Jchan is going for.

I remember when the game had multiple animation changes as you leveled up. I think there were 3 sets. Level 1-24? 25-44? 45-50? I don't remember, but don't bother correcting me cause it isn't important. Point is it really helped differentiate the high level players.

Like Minor-Arch Shielding for example, in form 1 it'd be green light and a little sparse, then form 2 added some gold light and the particle effect got denser / more intense, then form 3 it was this ultra-dense light show with rainbow colors. If you saw a high level cleric casting a big ol rainbow spell you knew a good buff was imminent.

Changing those effects to a homogenized spell animation lineup that always looks the same, in addition to having Luclin models not take much advantage of their potential and never look anywhere near as good as the Velious armor textures that already existed...

Talk about subtraction by addition.

Rajaah · Mar 21, 2023

Kharzette said:
What does the high elf ability do?

I'm guessing High Elf is protected from taking damage/effects from their own spells, i.e. rain damage spells and targeted AOEs won't hit them too. Which would be super useful for Wizards and their AOE snare (I'd take Druid single-target longer-lasting snare any day). If it affects Cannibalize, then a High Elf Shaman would be completely OP.

I really like the idea of having all races have a useful race innate trait, not just Ogre and Troll and whoever else does now. I notice Ogre is unchanged on that list because they're already "there" and the list is just bringing everyone else up.

Speaking of completely OP I'm not too keen on the last one. Resist all spells seems way OP an ability for Drakkin. If keeping that ability, scale it down to like "10% less damage from spells" and have it increase to 20 and 30 over time. OR to really be on-brand, have the Drakkin racial innate be resistance to dragon breath, up to 30%.

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