EQ TLP - Oakwynd (Evolving Ruleset Progression Server)

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Zaide

TLP Idealist
3,904
4,751
I expect that to be the case at the premier locations and for it to be a worse experience for everyone involved than just losing and getting pushed out. People are going to fight it out way longer than makes sense getting more and more angry instead of just going somewhere else.

Picture this scenario. Kunark has launched. You and some of your buddies are camping Pained Soul. One wizard from <Enemy Guild> walks over. No problem, it's 5 versus 1. Pained Soul spawns and he targets it and hits his Staff of Temperate Flux basically before the model can be drawn on your screen. He kills it. He leaves. Another Wizard shows up. The entire meta in situations like that, even without just cheating, is to have a macro that is /target X, /useitem Y. I don't know the best way to set that up but I assume multiple lines, maybe more than one hotkey so you can piano them, maybe a pause 1 in there somewhere, whatever. That's it. Hope your internet is good. Some people are going to automate that. Even a generic button presser might be enough.

I would rather have to have a stronger force than deal with that shit. What a mess. Every shit kicker with an instant clicky can show up at any VP key spawn and roll the dice with everyone else. I haven't checked in quite a while, is the VP key quest still basically the same? I know Luclin shards got spread about their corresponding zones rather than necessarily require specific mobs.
I mean the meta would quickly just become auto clickers and eventually Macroquest. That would be the whole meta. We already saw it play out with the HT wars in Classic/Kunark in 2011 when it was the first few HTs to hit win.
 
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Lambourne

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,865
6,836
The potential negatives are obvious, but has there been any explanation as to what they expect this encounter locking thing to fix or add to the game?

I struggle to think of anything it would actually improve. It would hamper AE PLing although I really don't think this is a major issue that's keeping people from playing. It's more of a symptom of progression servers being top heavy and catching up an alt getting harder and harder to do over time.
 

Flobee

Vyemm Raider
2,674
3,072
I struggle to think of anything it would actually improve. It would hamper AE PLing although I really don't think this is a major issue that's keeping people from playing. It's more of a symptom of progression servers being top heavy and catching up an alt getting harder and harder to do over time.
You could make a strong argument that AE PLing has a negative effect on the PuG scene. You could also say that those people wouldn't be rolling alts if a PL option wasn't available. If I was in charge of TLP's I imagine I would have some interest in stopping this although I'm not sure whether or not that is actually a good idea in practice.
 

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
47,407
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View attachment 467797

If they really want people to test some of this new shit they need to sprinkle a little more sugar on it or they're going to start out with mediocre numbers before getting fisted by D4.
One of the stances DPG has that is whipping EQ players into a furor is they rarely tweak things post-release. Vaniki is an example where an effort was made to select bosses for each tier, and they stuck to those bosses even when it was demonstrated they were unrealistic and needed to evaluate.

If this encounter locking shit goes live and the server is an abandoned dumpster, they'll probably just accept it, draw the wrong conclusions and forget it before next April rolls around.
 
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yerm

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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16,607
You could make a strong argument that AE PLing has a negative effect on the PuG scene. You could also say that those people wouldn't be rolling alts if a PL option wasn't available. If I was in charge of TLP's I imagine I would have some interest in stopping this although I'm not sure whether or not that is actually a good idea in practice.

It's a bad idea that a lot of people have. They think that if there wasn't powerleveling they'd get those alts in groups. Likewise they think if there wasn't boxing they'd get more groups. In practice, the people who want to group gladly add others to their plvl andor drop alt boxes, while the people who don't want to be sociable won't be and would sooner log off or even quit than be dredged into a pug scene. Much like lack of boxing leads to cliquey behavior, lack of ae pl will just mean something else relatively antisocial will replace it.
 
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Jasper

Bronze Knight of the Realm
130
65
It does seem pretty clear that they REALLY want to try this encounter locking on a TLP, in order to test it for live. Also seems clear that they are only releasing one TLP this year, because they were concerned that no one would choose this, given any alternative. Doesn't bode well for the future. I was optimistic about J Chan initially, but these last couple years... not so much. Mischief may turn out to be EQ TLP's high water mark.
 

Creslin

Trakanon Raider
2,503
1,151
The terrible thing about encounter locking is it probably would work ok on live but will be awful for atleast the first 5 expansions on a tlp and is massively vulnerable to griefing.

the other shit with bonus xp per character and stuff is just a non starter cause TLPs aren’t really a place where people play tons of alts on the same account just because the pace of content is too fast so seems odd to test that here too

Hard pass for me on this one. Going to stick with turtle wow for now. No desire to be a Guinea pig for jchan when it’s clear they don’t actually care about making a fun tlp.
 

imready2go

WTF is a Raider?
<Gold Donor>
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I'm fine with the ruleset. I'm far more pissed they insist on opening on Memorial Day weekend. They still think the game is full of loser neckbeards who never leave their basement rather then people who have families and actually go outside when the weather turns nice.
 
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Rajaah

Honorable Member
<Gold Donor>
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One of the stances DPG has that is whipping EQ players into a furor is they rarely tweak things post-release. Vaniki is an example where an effort was made to select bosses for each tier, and they stuck to those bosses even when it was demonstrated they were unrealistic and needed to evaluate.

I don't know, maybe they saw all the sycophants on the live board responding to criticism from people like me with "Rajaah just wants Vaniki to be ezmode!" and "How do we know unless we try" type posts defending the boss choices.

I bet most of those sycophants didn't even end up playing on the server.

I'm fine with the ruleset. I'm far more pissed they insist on opening on Memorial Day weekend. They still think the game is full of loser neckbeards who never leave their basement rather then people who have families and actually go outside when the weather turns nice.

Yeah, and we always get double exp on like Labor Day weekend type situations and I'd miss it 90% of the time when I was actually playing.
 
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Ambiturner

Ssraeszha Raider
16,043
19,530
It does seem pretty clear that they REALLY want to try this encounter locking on a TLP, in order to test it for live. Also seems clear that they are only releasing one TLP this year, because they were concerned that no one would choose this, given any alternative. Doesn't bode well for the future. I was optimistic about J Chan initially, but these last couple years... not so much. Mischief may turn out to be EQ TLP's high water mark.

Vaniki didn't turn out as popular as they hoped, but it was still a great attempt at giving players something new and outside the box.

This is her first, "Wtf are you even thinking?" move
 

Animosity

Silver Baronet of the Realm
7,055
5,956
Vaniki didn't turn out as popular as they hoped, but it was still a great attempt at giving players something new and outside the box.

This is her first, "Wtf are you even thinking?" move
If they even tried to make Vaniki viable it would of been more successful. Also hitting it with a huge banwave a month into it didnt help.
 

Arbitrary

Tranny Chaser
29,001
79,684
If the version of Vaniki we got had been the test server version and they launched a proper version with all the fixes it needed in place it would have been great. I still had a lot of fun but it was plagued with opacity. You just didn't know how anything was going to work. Every unlock everyone had to kind of shrug their shoulders and it was easy to get burned. Once you have to accept that you're probably not doing anymore challenges ever, the point of the server, that's the end.
 
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xmod2

<Gold Donor>
771
1,198
Vaniki was really fun for a while, esp as an enchanter. Crawling around through Ferubi where everything was deep red gave that 'old school' dungeon crawl vibe before everything became 'solved' and lost that feeling of danger. Our guild died from a perfect storm of WotLK + ill timed ban waves + hitting challenges that were poorly thought out / unkillable. Launch through end of Planes progression was some fun shit though. Closest to that original EQ sensation I've had in a while.

Now that some time has passed, I feel like this server WITHOUT FTE is just shitty all around. The bonuses all suck, the unlocks are long as shit. If this is all we're getting until next year, I kind of want them to keep FTE just so we can experience the utter shitshow for a few months. We have swollen eq blue balls waiting for this damn TLP and if it's just a regular server with 25% more loot, it's not going to do it for me. So either scrap FTE and come up with something actually interesting in a month (and 10x all of the 'evolving' bonuses) or keep FTE and let's ride the fucking wheels off this server.