Change in the State of the Game

mwhym · 11-30-2007, 07:53 AM

Well,

I am not certain if I am unhappy with the new expansion, I am concerned though.

It seems that with RoK the mechanics that had been in place for a long time, dissappeared.

Prior to RoK there was content that allowed for a versatile type of play,
especially for those at the level cap.

Lets face it soloing solo mobs is for (even if that) leveling and farming. The way RoK works with quests and solo mobs its all fine and moving along nicely ... till the majority is at 80.

Before RoK there was allot of heroic content (its too much to even list here) which could be soloed (by almost any class as I witnessed to my surprise many times) which provided for some great options. Some of the older content was easy (from dof mostly) but not without its occasional danger, some of the KoS soloable heroics were risky at times and some was an undertaking that demanded both knowledge of the mobs/areas as well as good knowledge of your class, as well as a certain level of gear. EoF brought more of the same - but with far more increased risk and catered even more to the duo-trio situations.

RoK seems to be divided into two sections now :
the absolute solo content - that if you play carefully almost never run a risk of dying.
and
the group content which is impossible to do unless you are in a solid group.

Of course there will be a multitude of whiners who will flame me here saying blah blah blah that I want to solo group content and I am complaining about not being able to. Of course they have already missed the point.

The bottom line is there were many options available and there were alot (yes ALOT) of diferent challenging scenarios - outside the traditional group concept that kept a large number, of level caped players, occupied.

This simply does not seem to be the case anymore.
Of course I may be wrong and things will change as ppl progress, but there is significantly little heroic content to begin with, so that it just doesn't seem possible to provide similar types of play.

In a couple of months with alot of lvl 80's
Do you think these people will keep plowing through solo quests and solo mobs ? for what....
Do you think that killing the solo named ... which drop absolute crap will be of interest to anyone ?

So you are left with groups/raids - but not many other options
AND
the worst part is that there simply is not enough heroic content.

Its a new expansion granted ... but its not a new game , its not the first expansion, it comes to replace playable content (and of a slightly different mentality) from 3 expansions, and this is probably the marketing error of SOE, you have to understand that you cant introduce less content (content that will occupy the majority of the population for the majority of the time period till next expansion) that there was before , as it stands now there were almost 25 heroic dungeons (and a few overland ones) versus 7 or 8 now.

So my fear is that this change of direction, whether or not I like it or not, does not seem to have been well implemented, and that it will start to show in a month or too. Unless they start adding new instances/dungeons soon and with some frequency it will be a slow year till next expansion as the only thing announce is Epic quests which can in no way fill the gap alone.

Cheers.

Muraha · 11-30-2007, 08:10 AM

The fact that you were able to solo group content was bad design. They have fixed this issue now and you want it changed? If you want to farm instances Solo then do Shard of Fear or Unrest. They drop level 70 masters and gear that can be transmuted into T8 mans and infusion. I cannot believe you want them to take away the challenge of heroic instances so you can muck about soloing it. That is just bollox

Oakmiser · 11-30-2007, 08:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mwhym

Its a new expansion granted ... but its not a new game , its not the first expansion, it comes to replace playable content (and of a slightly different mentality) from 3 expansions, and this is probably the marketing error of SOE, you have to understand that you cant introduce less content (content that will occupy the majority of the population for the majority of the time period till next expansion) that there was before , as it stands now there were almost 25 heroic dungeons (and a few overland ones) versus 7 or 8 now.

The cap staying at 70 for two expansions and an adventure pack in the middle does this.

7 or 8 from KoS
2-3 from fallen dynasty
and 7 or 8 from EoF
2-3 from Game Updates (I can think of unrest and shard of fear, but I think there may be a 3rd...)

So the cap is raised and all the old content is now for just farming and leveling.(Although I have to say I really do enjoy the leveling experience from 60-70, the itemization and quest content are great.)

This just happens when there is a new cap increasing expansion. After about 3-4 months into they should have things tweaked better,and after the next expansion you will prolly feel alot better about the amount heroic content and your ability to solo some of it.

Slamdar · 11-30-2007, 08:31 AM

Meh, I can only recall of 2 places in KoS where there was contested heroic content, Palace of the Awakened and Sanctum of the Scaleborn. Other than that it was a few named heroics sprinkled here and there, much like it is in RoK. RoK has Sebilis and Karnor's Castle.

I do have to say though.... It is really lame for heroics to be hitting scouts with fully fabled EoF gear at white con for 3-4k a swing. I think that could definently be toned down a bit.

tomthumb · 11-30-2007, 08:37 AM

mhwym, you're completely right, many will not see the forest for the trees but there are some serious cracks showing in the game and the attrition rate of this expansion will be humongous (exponential decay on vanguard scale, mark my words)

I am still puzzled by the Cult of Gallenite(tm). I dont agree with many of the changes and costant wowification of this game. My attempts to have people name specific good things that he did came to nothing. But I heard he's a "great guy if you talk to him."

Dagg · 11-30-2007, 09:17 AM

You guys are looking at this issue backwards. many seem to believe that for truly challenging solo content that drops good loot you need to be able to solo heroic zones, in other words, zones meant for groups. this is wrong in so many ways i'm not even going to go into it. Nobody should ever ever ever be able to solo content meant for 6 level appropriate people. obviously you're going to have a few people in end game gear that will be able to solo through some of the easiest group zones, but that should take time and should not be worth the effort.

what is actually needed is truly difficult solo content that drops loot worth getting. in other words, don't nerf group dungeon difficuly so it can be soloed, rather, introduce solo instances that are truly difficult. they will need to be instanced so that groups don't roll in and kill everything for easy drops obviously, but imo there should be solo content, really really difficult solo content balanecd for people in full legendary or even full fabled.

heres a few ideas for these types of instances:

balanced around higher tier group gear or lower tier raid gea
drops loot on par with average or lower (i.e. not the best) dungeon loot and one or two really good but really rare items
no evac, no feign death, some mobs see through invis/stealth to prevent farming only named.
lockout on both failure and success
more than just hit the mob, encounters should be diverse and need at least some kind of strat to beat the nameds. not as complicated as raid strats obviously but something that involves more than just root + nuke or tank + spank.
all named mobs (at the least) should have some type of ranged attack, even if its not very good.
shouldn't be too long, but not too short either. maybe about the size of RoV?
below average xp (in other words its a zone mostly for loot) but with a few quests, possibly even a heritage quest or signature quest so that theres more than just mindless killing going on.

on a somewhat related note, perhaps getting one's epic could involve having to fight through one of these zones to separate the truly good players from those who just tag along with a good raid. some might start whining and bitching at this point about raid gear that needs you to do solo content, but it should be difficult enough to justify it imo.

here's a short summary for the idiots here who can't read more than 2 sentences in a row:

hard solo instances, think icy digs or nizara but for solo

leave group content as is

Pinski · 11-30-2007, 09:21 AM

You can't make hard solo content within the mechanics of this game without making it impossible for mages to kill.

Dagg · 11-30-2007, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pinski

You can't make hard solo content within the mechanics of this game without making it impossible for mages to kill.

you CAN, you just have to be creative about it. for example:

solo dropped mage gear that wards or otherwise heals
solo dropped mage gear with a stoneskin or otherwise defensive proc/ability
solo dropped mage gear with stun/root/fear or other CC oriented ability procs
solo dropped mage gear which summons a limited tank pet (think cape of the creator from RoV)

these are all ideas i just came up with on the spot. the basic premise of course being that you'll need to gear up in solo gear (which raises defense for mages as opposed to raid gear which focuses on raising offence for mages) before being able to attempt the truly difficult raid zones.

side note: obviously someone is going to go off on a rant about wizards/warlocks tanking now. the gear ideas i listed above aren't intended to be able to protect the clothy from the 5-6k hits they'll be taking from heroics, and it shouldn't be able to let them fight solos head on. what it should do is provide some kind of safety net for if root breaks or is resisted.

Pinski · 11-30-2007, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dagg

you CAN, you just have to be creative about it. for example:

solo dropped mage gear that wards or otherwise heals
solo dropped mage gear with a stoneskin or otherwise defensive proc/ability
solo dropped mage gear with stun/root/fear or other CC oriented ability procs
solo dropped mage gear which summons a limited tank pet (think cape of the creator from RoV)

these are all ideas i just came up with on the spot. the basic premise of course being that you'll need to gear up in solo gear (which raises defense for mages as opposed to raid gear which focuses on raising offence for mages) before being able to attempt the truly difficult raid zones.

side note: obviously someone is going to go off on a rant about wizards/warlocks tanking now. the gear ideas i listed above aren't intended to be able to protect the clothy from the 5-6k hits they'll be taking from heroics, and it shouldn't be able to let them fight solos head on. what it should do is provide some kind of safety net for if root breaks or is resisted.

Sorry, but your ideas are flawed. Either the solo content will be complete gimp for a mage, or it will be insanely difficult/near impossible. Try playing a mage and understand why that is. If the mob isn't going to hit you, how can the content be hard? If you're talking about items, where did you get the idea I was talking about items from my post? All I said was that it is nearly impossible to make hard solo content for a mage. Because it is. Mages have so much solo utility that it makes solo content a total joke, no matter what you're fighting.

Dagg · 11-30-2007, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pinski

Sorry, but your ideas are flawed. Either the solo content will be complete gimp for a mage, or it will be insanely difficult/near impossible. Try playing a mage and understand why that is.

If the mob isn't going to hit you, how can the content be hard?

this is precisely why in my original post i stated that every named mob should have at least 1 ranged attack, preferrably one that interrupts and has a 2+ second cast time. mages need to learn to use their stuns/stifles properly while soloing, for many its root, nuke, nuke, nuke, root, nuke nuke, etc... also if they're orange or even high yellow your root is gonna get resisted occasionally and you will get hit.

If you're talking about items, where did you get the idea I was talking about items from my post?

i realize you weren't talking about items, i merely suggested that giving mages gear with defensive stats would prevent them from being 1 or 2 hitted. mages with defensive gear will solo alot better than those in offensive gear if the mob doesnt die in 2-3 nukes.

All I said was that it is nearly impossible to make hard solo content for a mage. Because it is.

you'll get no argument from me here, hard solo content for mages is hard because the way they solo is so different from everyone else.

Mages have so much solo utility that it makes solo content a total joke, no matter what you're fighting.

as you said before, its usually either too easy or too hard when it comes to mage soloing. this is a probem which needs to be fixed, not taken into stride.

just so you know pinski, i don't disagree with what you're saying, i just think that rather than accepting things as they are something needs to be done.