(Rothgar) Re:A letter to SOE from a Medium-Core Raider

[Official Forums]

Not sure why this was moved to NGD either, honestly. However, your feedback is still being read.

You have valid points and I agree with many of them.





LINK

[Diknak]

not using quote ftl. What did this OP say? (websense sucks)

[Perm]

Dear SOE,

I have been a loyal subscriber since July of 2005. I have been a co-leader of a raiding guild since Dec of 2006, and an officer prior to that. In the time I have played I have seen many people come and go. I have seen good expansions and bad. I have seen nerfs and character balance issues; server mergers and many other developments and setbacks.

One thing I can say is that I have always enjoyed the game, no matter how badly my class was messed up or how many of my friends or guild mates left for greener pastures in other MMOs or guilds or just to experience the real world. However, my enjoyment is waning along with so many others.

My server, Kithicor, has suffered many guilds disbanding of late due to a lack of available players to fill out their rosters. i have lost 8-9 people of my raid force myself. The commen thread to all of the people leaving? They are bored. Most of them (including myself) have multiple characters that are level 80 and at 200 AA or close to. They have no need of shard gear. They have no need of instance loot. They don't want to level yet another character. The only thing to log in for is raids and when you can't get classes you need, those are getting old to since you can't progress.

The release of GU53 did little to entice people to remain. The Achivement System gives no tangible and USEFUL rewards. Those that missed out on getting AA for various things aren't likely to go get the achievements done as they will hold out till there is an AA cap increase. So, there is still no reason to log in. The Shard of Love offers nothing but fluff items and 1 time AA experience. A fair amount of people will do it once, then never again. Miragul's Planar Shard - while it is nice to have another raid zone, many of us can't clear what is already out there due to lack of population to flesh out our ranks. Then, you add items into the heroic instances to make the raids easier, so in essence creating the necessity for many people to run zones for no other reason than to collect those items. It is becoming a JOB and not fun.

If the achievement system had offered useful rewards, such as dual stat adornments, or the ability to add 2 points to an AA tree when completing an achievement, or rocking charm items, etc. This MIGHT have been a draw for those of us who want something to work towards that IMPROVES our characters.

If you had done server mergers, then at least the population wouldn't be spread so thin. I realize that server mergers would cut into the Cash Cow transfer potions that are available thru the Marketplace, but please, understand that the economy sucks at the moment. For many people this is their entertainment. This is their hobby. This is their escape from reality. Many people are struggling just to pay the subscription fees. Throw us a bone and think about merging some servers so that we have a base of people to work with so perhaps we may find some enjoyment in the game again.

This latest expansion with its cure heavy scripting has burned out the healers. I have been looking for ONE templar for going on 3 months. I have had 2 applicants in that time and neither were able to handle the whack-a-mole curing as well as keeping their reactives up. When you spend THREE months trying to find a single class and have no success, this tells you things are not well in the land of Norrath.

In the last three months, we have lost at least two major guilds to collapse. Unfortunately, those people didn't remain on the server. Most went to other servers or quit entirely. We have had one guild transfer here to "rule the school" and another leave to go to another server to do the same. We have at least 2 other non-avatar raid guilds on the verge of collapse and at least 2-3 others with severe recruitment issues. Much of this is being caused by people QUITTING EQ2.

Please SOE, I implore you to do something to breathe some life into the game before more people take of for Aion or other MMOs. Delaying the expansion is killing the game, fluffy GUs with no real substance aren't keeping the interest of a vast amount of us, continued nerfs and re-defining classes isn't the best way to hold on to people.

I see hundred of posts from people on ways to improve the game, ways to work towards class balance, ways to deal with itemization, ways to implement avatars into instanced encounters, and a majestic array of other ideas, suggestions, wants, desires,etc. People WANT to play EQ2, but they also want to know their voices are heard, that the devlopers realize the we, the players, have a borader understanding of the game than you may think. We the players are a font of knowldge, we are talented and skilled and we know what gamers want, do you?

[Diknak]

much appreciated. Thanks!

[Windain]

An excellent post detailing the struggles of the non-hardcore, yet non-casual raid guilds. Kithicor is an example of a server with guilds falling apart. I am in the tier of raiding similar to Tainted (Shianne wrote that post) and we have to constantly get new members.

Hardest part of TSO for us? Having the right people online. Right now we are struggling with Xebnok, why? We have 1 tank online. Another day we might be missing 1-2 enchanters, 1-2 bards, a healer but have people to fill it... that can't really take those jobs.

Hardcore players would complain if you dumb down the content (I would prefer they didn't myself), but they really need to take away a lot of the class dependance. I don't care what they need to do, but as long as you have 24 bodies that know what they are doing and some diversity, you should be able to kill just about anything.

[Argyuile]

You could always switch targets based on what classes you have available. What if you had 24 healers should you be able to kill anything? 24 tanks?

[Windain]

I did say some diversity. With 6 healers, 2-3 tank classes (and maybe actually make brawlers worth something for those people that like the brawlers and had to switch to enchanters could play the character they want), and the rest as scouts/mages.

Ideally I'd like to see raids require 1 from each class (bard, brawler, cleric, etc) with 12 spots being more flexible. It is very unrealistic to think 24 healers is going to work, but 8 healers... maybe? Or make a use to have multiple tanks in a raid, this would increase the number of tanks on a server.

And yes we do switch targets, we don't actually attempt Xebnok with 1 tank but it gets old skipping him constantly.

[serum321]

Very well written letter. Recruitment is a joke, especially spot on about the healers. Have been recruiting a shaman for ~9 months without a single app, inquisitor ~6 months with one terribad app. Can't learn new tso encounters with a single fury or single warden healing a group since half/all the group will get one shotted every ae (druid revamp should have happened at least 18 months ago). People are quitting due to rl/boredom and not moving on to other guilds, in almost a year we have had one person leave to join a guild further in progression and they hadn't even become a member yet so its not like people aren't happy where they are.

[Shianne]

Thanks guys

[Illuminator]

Originally Posted by Argyuile

What if you had 24 healers should you be able to kill anything? 24 tanks?

Why not?