EQ Never

Quaid_sl said:

I'm not entirely sure if it's a hard numerical restriction, or if tiers are gated by things like 'needing an obsidian pick to get into the magma caves' or something. I don't think they've been totally clear. I mean, if a tier 1 player is useless against tier 5 encounters wtf is the point of a no-level system?

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There is no point. People just hear the word "levels" and get sand in their vaginas. It's just the new corporate buzz word to fool the dim witted; like when they started calling retards differently abled.

zzeris_sl said:

It's the same driving force all MMOs have at later levels. Just because you are a warrior doesn't mean you may not want a skill from a different melee based class at some point. They just have to make the skills in newer classes interesting and you have the carrot. Just like leveling is never truly the driving force in games so far, classes won't be the driving force for everyone. I think a lot of people will just want to explore, kill, etc like they do in games now. It just has to be fun and SOE has someone hooked.

The grind is there for all games. You just have to make it worth the effort. Doing it differently doesn't make it completely fresh and new but it's better than the same old crap.

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I went so far as to say "playing the class they want to play and they have in their mind, the best cross passives and cross abilities for that class." Though I understand your points.

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Its just we have agreed that the main grind is Gear in this game, no matter how big or small the carrot is for class acquisition. It looks as though we've also came to the conclusion that some classes are probably going to be able to be purchased and everyones going to be ok with that as long as there is a free solution to getting those classes. But the more I think about it, its probably just going to be a "starter pack" thats able to be purchased. You have access to a certain amount of the staple classes of the genre. Cleric/warrior/wizard/enchanter/rogue for example. That starter pack also comes with some fluff items and is something like 50 bucks. (Basically a box purchase)

The driving force for me to even want to get other Classes is because their elements are probably going to be better suited for different areas. Where the Warrior takes generally, the same damage across the board no matter where he is.... the shadow knight is probably going to be better suited to whatever elements he lines up better with. (Dark/... Nature?) I know that Im going to end up in a guild that min/maxs and will have to gather up all these classes if I ever commit that much time playing this game. ie. You can only beat Quarm, eh wait, thats a bad example. Mm.. Nagafen, you can only tank/heal for Nagafen if you have a class that takes fire damage well, and you can only DPS for Nagafen if you have a class that damages fire well. That type of mess. (That actually sounds pretty fun in my masochistic mind)

But that only leads me down another concern of how powerful or negligent are elements going to be in this game?

Well they said here won't be resist gear or anything like that. Also, you won't encounter a situation where your fire attacks won't damage a fire MOB, but your ice attacks on that fire MOB will get a dmg bonus.

etchazz_sl said:

There is no point. People just hear the word "levels" and get sand in their vaginas. It's just the new corporate buzz word to fool the dim witted; like when they started calling retards differently abled.

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It goes beyond that. Levels essentially restricts content to certain bands of level that start off large and narrow as you get to the level cap. If you use a level-less system or a more constrained advancement system (3-5 tiers) you're able to re-use content or push people together into areas of interest.

People like advancing their character, just look at how long and how many people play the level cap in WOW. You just need to create a game that doesn't have a tedious, long, overdone, over-designed leveling paradigm attached to it. I think thats what SOE is doing.

Also, regarding classes. If you don't think SOE is eyeing Riot and how much money they make of skins and champs and they don't have the same thing in mind with classes in SOE, I don't know what to say. You might get access to a bunch of classes for free. You might even get a bunch that you can unlock for free too. But if you want the new Rainbowrape class, you'll have to either buy it outright, or buy the expansion area it's in. That expansion area might be just a small zone or dungeon.

For someone who hasn't paid hardcore attention to EQ:N - how is the abundance of classes going to work with regards to balancing? Is there multi-classing?

I've never gotten into MOBAs, but I know they have a crap ton of classes typically. Is the basic idea that for any guy that seems OP, there's something that can counter it?

Draegan_sl said:

It goes beyond that. Levels essentially restricts content to certain bands of level that start off large and narrow as you get to the level cap. If you use a level-less system or a more constrained advancement system (3-5 tiers) you're able to re-use content or push people together into areas of interest.

People like advancing their character, just look at how long and how many people play the level cap in WOW. You just need to create a game that doesn't have a tedious, long, overdone, over-designed leveling paradigm attached to it. I think thats what SOE is doing.

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But it's still going to be like that. If you're tier 1, you'll get your ass kicked in a tier 5 area. You're still going to have to "level up" in order to survive in the tougher areas. It's just a lamer version of what the original EQ did. If you're a tier 5 warrior, you're not going to invite a tier 1 wizard into your group, because he'll be useless. The restrictions that levels/items put on any other MMO are still going to be there

I hope they reconsider that system. A lot of the reason many MMOs die is because it's either hard to keep up with your friends in levels, or it's hard for them to keep up with you.

I honestly think the game "Monster Hunter" sort of did it best. There were tiers as well, but it was a bit more flexible.

a_skeleton_02_sl said:

You're on page 1213 bro

EverQuest Next - EverQuest Next Wiki

Educate yourself.

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Pft, I'm on page 405.

The classes page mentions a bit about how it would in work in theory. There isn't anything there about any of my other questions - like if they've made statements on how they plan to handle balance issues.

High page count doesn't mean anything. There's still not a lot of info about the game out there, so I was attempting to educate myself by asking other people who have been following it closely, and are more likely to have picked up various tidbits in interviews, presentations, etc that are more recent that what a user-contributed wiki would have in it, for a game that hasn't yet released.

etchazz_sl said:

But it's still going to be like that. If you're tier 1, you'll get your ass kicked in a tier 5 area. You're still going to have to "level up" in order to survive in the tougher areas. It's just a lamer version of what the original EQ did. If you're a tier 5 warrior, you're not going to invite a tier 1 wizard into your group, because he'll be useless. The restrictions that levels/items put on any other MMO are still going to be there

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This.

MMOs are about character advancement, building your toon to be more and more powerful so as to take on stronger challenges. It doesn't matter what you call it, in the end it's still just another version of levels.

That isn't to say they can't do a better job of it. The classic version is very limiting, especially when trying to play with friends / family. GW2 had an interesting take on it. I look forward to seeing how EQNext attempts to improve upon it.

a_skeleton_02_sl said:

uuu tubz

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Thanks! Youtube is blocked at work of course, but I'll tag it to read when I get home. I generally am only on the forums during work, heh. It kinda dents my googles.

etchazz_sl said:

But it's still going to be like that. If you're tier 1, you'll get your ass kicked in a tier 5 area. You're still going to have to "level up" in order to survive in the tougher areas. It's just a lamer version of what the original EQ did. If you're a tier 5 warrior, you're not going to invite a tier 1 wizard into your group, because he'll be useless. The restrictions that levels/items put on any other MMO are still going to be there

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Well yeah, but instead of stretching out the playerbase over 50 levels, you're splitting them up over 4-5 tiers. Plus you only have to make content for a 4-5 tiers, instead of 5-10 level ranges.

Grim1_sl said:

This.

MMOs are about character advancement, building your toon to be more and more powerful so as to take on stronger challenges. It doesn't matter what you call it, in the end it's still just another version of levels.

That isn't to say they can't do a better job of it. The classic version is very limiting, especially when trying to play with friends / family. GW2 had an interesting take on it. I look forward to seeing how EQNext attempts to improve upon it.

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It does matter what you call it because perception is key. When WOW went from grinding mobs to grind quests which were grinding mobs, people hailed it as a good change. Same thing here.

People don't want to start a new character and then have to gain 50, 60, 90 levels to hit the cap where they really want to play. However the change of pace to only work through a small amount of tiers while also playing the end game gear grind for each tier is a very very big change in design perception.

Presentation. It's a way to get away from the ad nauseam quest grind and simply move players directly into an item progression. But psychologically they can't do that with the traditional levels 1-60 system because forum whining casuals.

Draegan_sl said:

Well yeah, but instead of stretching out the playerbase over 50 levels, you're splitting them up over 4-5 tiers. Plus you only have to make content for a 4-5 tiers, instead of 5-10 level ranges.



It does matter what you call it because perception is key. When WOW went from grinding mobs to grind quests which were grinding mobs, people hailed it as a good change. Same thing here.

People don't want to start a new character and then have to gain 50, 60, 90 levels to hit the cap where they really want to play. However the change of pace to only work through a small amount of tiers while also playing the end game gear grind for each tier is a very very big change in design perception.

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So 15+ years later and with all the advancements in technology and the fact that they're going to spend a thousand times the amount of money that they spent to make the original EQ, you're telling me that they're doing 5 tiers instead of 50 levels because it's more convenient? Ummm, okay.