EQ F2P- Returning Players & Current Content
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Lol we were just talking about you last night, and our dual enchanter husk groups! You playing?
Just a heads up for those making mages... Pet tanking nerfs are coming.
Ngreth said it's only going to affect raids / 'very very difficult group bosses,' but this is SoE, you just know that 'very very difficult group bosses' is going to = every T2 rare.
Ngreth said it's only going to affect raids / 'very very difficult group bosses,' but this is SoE, you just know that 'very very difficult group bosses' is going to = every T2 rare.
bixxby
Molten Core Raider
- 2,750
- 47
Buy yourself 1 month of a station pass and you'll have a year of every SOE game including PS2, and maybe EQNext (depending on what Smedley means when he says we'll get our hands on it this year).
Fight
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 4,667
- 5,580
Rain of Fear Overview
The Content:Zone structure, quest progression, variety of content and game-play are all great. EQ has found their formula and for the past few expansions now, you have some commonalities that have emerged.
Open content to all level 85+, no player flags or keys required. Each zone's progression contained within a series of quests, which must be completed in order. You get rewarded at the end with a 2 group missions that produced instanced content, great exp and loot. In addition, each zone has about 10 Mercenary or "kill quests" that result in rewards if you do them all. There are also optional quests in each zone that usually give rewards in the form of items or AA gains. It is a format that works for solo'ers, groups, and boxers. The difficulty has been tuned with merc's in-mind. Some 6 real-player groups might find the challenge lacking in some of the content, but 3-man teams using mercs will have a nice challenge.
I cannot speak to any of the raid content and that aspect of the expansion is not included in any of this overview.
Zones:The expansion is a mixture of newly created zones and re-used zones from older content (Eastern Wastes, Crystal Caverns, Kael Drakkel). The nostalgia is awesome and it will leave you wanting more. They really should have added an additional 4 retro dungeon-zones to the expansion, because they really work well. That is not to say the new zones are not very impressive and look great for a game that was made in 1999. The new zones look as good and provide the atmosphere of any modern MMO out there... but damn, the old zones sure are fun
Itemization:They cut some serious corners here. In tier 1 zones, they have around 10-15 named mobs with 3 loots in their tables. Their most common drop can be dropped randomly by any trash mob in the zone. They also include this same loot pool as the rewards in the chests at the end of group missions. It is fun getting random loot, but when you realize it is the same loot you will be getting when you work hard, put the time in, and finally conquer a mission... the system just falls apart. What a disappointment.
Even if you have multiple characters, it will only be a week or two before you are completely outfitted in modern 2100 Mana/Hp gear. Then, when you consider that Tier 2 is only a 100 Mana/Hp upgrade, you are going to feel like your character's item and power progression is nearly topped off after only the first intro zone in the entire expansion.
In addition to those things, the itemization is totally cookie cutter. The shoulders you get in one tier 1 zone are more or less completely equal to the shoulders you get in another tier 1 zone, with simply a name/icon change. Same focus abilities, same average stats, blah, blah, blah. Gone are the days of choosing this item over that one, for a focus on mana, or a cool clicky. Most everything is ALL/ALL, one size fits all. It's lazy design. Outside of quest armor, there seems to be no highly desired class only gear, that boost special abilities. It is just a shame and disappointing.
New Spells and AA Abilities:Terrible, absolutely terrible. Zero new AA abilities and limited upgrade ranks of old abilities. It is almost like they launched the expansion and said,"oh shit, we forgot about AA's. Let's emergency patch in 3 new ranks of each class' five passive abilities and make them cost 20 AA's each."
The spells got nearly the same treatment. Zero new spells or innovation. They took level 91-95 spells, added 10-20% number upgrades and... viola! you have your 96-100 spells. I am sure the hard part was coming up with new names for all of them. They should be ashamed of themselves and they have seriously limited the longevity of their expansion, in a game where grinding is still one of the most enjoyable things to do.
What it Gets Wrong:A coherent story-line. Shards of fear falling all around the world and corrupting the inhabitants is good conceptually. Where it goes wrong is that it seems that each zone is independent of the others without coherence. There is no over-arching evil boss making occasional appearances. Baddies have their ill-intentions rooted in insanity, rather than a master plan you must overcome.
Also, Shard's Landing... Functionally the zone works great. Great place to level and gear your characters... but they also made it the ugliest zone of the expansion, the hub on the one you will be spending the most in /boggle.
What it Gets Right:It is fun. It is challenging. The atmosphere and the music in the new zones is great.
Tons of content and varied quest design. The progression quests are detailed and long. The group instanced missions all have their own unique twists. Sometimes you are fighting horde's of mobs, sometimes you fight a big boss with multiple abilities and phases, or sometimes you are sabotaging other factions of mobs via traps or poisons. All of it is unique and will keep you wanting to know whats next.
The mobs have a nice variety of abilities, that just works. Some are immune to snare, some are immune to mez, some are SoW speed, some can see invis, some are rooted in place for encounters... none of it is random, and all of it has rhyme and a reason once you learn the content. The variety keeps things fresh and challenging.
The Final Word
Too many corners cut for this to be a classic expansion. It is tremendous fun, but it doesn't take long to realize that not a lot of depth, attention, or detail went into the design. After House of Thule and even Veil of Alaris, RoF is a step back from what the EQ Live team have shown they are capable of.
The star of EQ is the gameplay and the challenge. New content gives you a bigger playground to experience it in. Definitely in this expansion, the content is there and I applaud them for that... but content always runs out.
Itemization and Spells/AA's are so important to a great MMO experience, and ROF has definitely succumbed to "don't worry, it's +more gooder!". No sense of achievement in spending 200 AA's to make your characters mitigation go from 42.5% to 44.5% There is no heart or soul behind the upgrades, when they are 'All/All' side-grades for everyone. It is all homogenized and sanitized to the point nothing feels important or special. It is all spit out by an item generator.
Between the new zones being great, and the added nostalgia of the old zones... between the varied types of content for everyone and the mountain of content... There is a lot to like about this expansion, but it is fleeting. It feels like a skeleton crew made this expansion, when you look past the surface. It just doesn't feel well-thought-out or that it supposed to have much of a life past a month or two of playing. Maybe they subtlety want to push people towards EQ Next... maybe?
Score 6/10
The Content:Zone structure, quest progression, variety of content and game-play are all great. EQ has found their formula and for the past few expansions now, you have some commonalities that have emerged.
Open content to all level 85+, no player flags or keys required. Each zone's progression contained within a series of quests, which must be completed in order. You get rewarded at the end with a 2 group missions that produced instanced content, great exp and loot. In addition, each zone has about 10 Mercenary or "kill quests" that result in rewards if you do them all. There are also optional quests in each zone that usually give rewards in the form of items or AA gains. It is a format that works for solo'ers, groups, and boxers. The difficulty has been tuned with merc's in-mind. Some 6 real-player groups might find the challenge lacking in some of the content, but 3-man teams using mercs will have a nice challenge.
I cannot speak to any of the raid content and that aspect of the expansion is not included in any of this overview.
Zones:The expansion is a mixture of newly created zones and re-used zones from older content (Eastern Wastes, Crystal Caverns, Kael Drakkel). The nostalgia is awesome and it will leave you wanting more. They really should have added an additional 4 retro dungeon-zones to the expansion, because they really work well. That is not to say the new zones are not very impressive and look great for a game that was made in 1999. The new zones look as good and provide the atmosphere of any modern MMO out there... but damn, the old zones sure are fun
Itemization:They cut some serious corners here. In tier 1 zones, they have around 10-15 named mobs with 3 loots in their tables. Their most common drop can be dropped randomly by any trash mob in the zone. They also include this same loot pool as the rewards in the chests at the end of group missions. It is fun getting random loot, but when you realize it is the same loot you will be getting when you work hard, put the time in, and finally conquer a mission... the system just falls apart. What a disappointment.
Even if you have multiple characters, it will only be a week or two before you are completely outfitted in modern 2100 Mana/Hp gear. Then, when you consider that Tier 2 is only a 100 Mana/Hp upgrade, you are going to feel like your character's item and power progression is nearly topped off after only the first intro zone in the entire expansion.
In addition to those things, the itemization is totally cookie cutter. The shoulders you get in one tier 1 zone are more or less completely equal to the shoulders you get in another tier 1 zone, with simply a name/icon change. Same focus abilities, same average stats, blah, blah, blah. Gone are the days of choosing this item over that one, for a focus on mana, or a cool clicky. Most everything is ALL/ALL, one size fits all. It's lazy design. Outside of quest armor, there seems to be no highly desired class only gear, that boost special abilities. It is just a shame and disappointing.
New Spells and AA Abilities:Terrible, absolutely terrible. Zero new AA abilities and limited upgrade ranks of old abilities. It is almost like they launched the expansion and said,"oh shit, we forgot about AA's. Let's emergency patch in 3 new ranks of each class' five passive abilities and make them cost 20 AA's each."
The spells got nearly the same treatment. Zero new spells or innovation. They took level 91-95 spells, added 10-20% number upgrades and... viola! you have your 96-100 spells. I am sure the hard part was coming up with new names for all of them. They should be ashamed of themselves and they have seriously limited the longevity of their expansion, in a game where grinding is still one of the most enjoyable things to do.
What it Gets Wrong:A coherent story-line. Shards of fear falling all around the world and corrupting the inhabitants is good conceptually. Where it goes wrong is that it seems that each zone is independent of the others without coherence. There is no over-arching evil boss making occasional appearances. Baddies have their ill-intentions rooted in insanity, rather than a master plan you must overcome.
Also, Shard's Landing... Functionally the zone works great. Great place to level and gear your characters... but they also made it the ugliest zone of the expansion, the hub on the one you will be spending the most in /boggle.
What it Gets Right:It is fun. It is challenging. The atmosphere and the music in the new zones is great.
Tons of content and varied quest design. The progression quests are detailed and long. The group instanced missions all have their own unique twists. Sometimes you are fighting horde's of mobs, sometimes you fight a big boss with multiple abilities and phases, or sometimes you are sabotaging other factions of mobs via traps or poisons. All of it is unique and will keep you wanting to know whats next.
The mobs have a nice variety of abilities, that just works. Some are immune to snare, some are immune to mez, some are SoW speed, some can see invis, some are rooted in place for encounters... none of it is random, and all of it has rhyme and a reason once you learn the content. The variety keeps things fresh and challenging.
The Final Word
Too many corners cut for this to be a classic expansion. It is tremendous fun, but it doesn't take long to realize that not a lot of depth, attention, or detail went into the design. After House of Thule and even Veil of Alaris, RoF is a step back from what the EQ Live team have shown they are capable of.
The star of EQ is the gameplay and the challenge. New content gives you a bigger playground to experience it in. Definitely in this expansion, the content is there and I applaud them for that... but content always runs out.
Itemization and Spells/AA's are so important to a great MMO experience, and ROF has definitely succumbed to "don't worry, it's +more gooder!". No sense of achievement in spending 200 AA's to make your characters mitigation go from 42.5% to 44.5% There is no heart or soul behind the upgrades, when they are 'All/All' side-grades for everyone. It is all homogenized and sanitized to the point nothing feels important or special. It is all spit out by an item generator.
Between the new zones being great, and the added nostalgia of the old zones... between the varied types of content for everyone and the mountain of content... There is a lot to like about this expansion, but it is fleeting. It feels like a skeleton crew made this expansion, when you look past the surface. It just doesn't feel well-thought-out or that it supposed to have much of a life past a month or two of playing. Maybe they subtlety want to push people towards EQ Next... maybe?
Score 6/10
Cinge
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 7,320
- 2,392
I did notice looking at AAs that there is barely any that came with RoF. I know looking at my wizzy there is only 1 new archtype an 1 new class but both are just upgrades to previous abilities. Seems they have been dropping off.
Spell wise, hasn't that been happening since the start? Give spell a new name and add 10/20% to w/e the same type did previously(heal, dmg or buff stats).
I wonder how big the EQ team is. I wouldn't be shocked if its stripped to minimum.
Spell wise, hasn't that been happening since the start? Give spell a new name and add 10/20% to w/e the same type did previously(heal, dmg or buff stats).
I wonder how big the EQ team is. I wouldn't be shocked if its stripped to minimum.
bixxby
Molten Core Raider
- 2,750
- 47
Maybe, enchanters in EQ2 are more like buff bitch wizards. Buffs, fortunately, are set and forget though. They're mostly built around chain casting spells and have an AA that makes each cast speed up the next. They're kinda fun, but you're not a crowd control monster like EQ.
Is the EQ1 team working on EQNext? Maybe that would explain the lack of innovation right now, if they have all their efforts going towards the new title. HoT expansion is really cool, I haven't seen enough of VoA or RoF to say much about them. Even from the outside looking in on all the new loot it's clear that they are simply more ac/hp and all the stats/bonuses on every item. It really is a bit boring in terms of loot, but it's been that way for a long time now. Even the clickies stay the same with a bit more punch added to them. I would say I don't play EQ for the items really anymore, sure they are something that I look forward to upgrading, but the upgrades are so obvious there's no 'wow! awesome!' to getting new stuff. Maybe weapons, but not the armor/nonvis items.
What I play for now is the environments and variety of mobs. I think EQ has the most diverse locations and inhabitants therein of any game.. ever? Sounds crazy, but there is so much content it's staggering.
What I play for now is the environments and variety of mobs. I think EQ has the most diverse locations and inhabitants therein of any game.. ever? Sounds crazy, but there is so much content it's staggering.
We're having a blast on Test now. Can't wait to get the newer members geared up and head into DoDH!
I came back to Fippy after over a year away and it's so easy man, if you wanna have casual fun can log in there and have fun lol. Me, Sirene and Myown there
Agraza
Registered Hutt
- 6,890
- 521
Well you need a healer to go with it. I've used them to tank most of HoT/VoA at level, and easily when they're leveled into the xpac past the xpac they're in. They can't position for shit on multi-pulls, and you'd do well to debuff named. Otherwise they're effective.
its a j5? mine plows those same mobs pretty easy at 77.. i box a cleric but i just toss a ch on him every so often
Maybe I'm reading your reply wrong, but how do you have a J5 merc at 77? I thought you had to be at least 80 to do the instanced part with Murdunk?
Korrupt
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 4,832
- 1,228
I use my merc still at 95 and am boxing T2 nameds relatively well but some straight dominate me. Bringing my box beast who slows makes things a lot easier on named.
I dont know if anyone is on Vox I can help you out with some levels and gear. (I highly recommend not playing here, guilds are bad)
I dont know if anyone is on Vox I can help you out with some levels and gear. (I highly recommend not playing here, guilds are bad)