EQ TLP - Vaniki (Level-Locked Progression)

Mischief is really popular, rizlona is perfect if you hate being social outside raids, and there are various phinny clones to choose from. If a level locked mass autism server isn't your thing, just play elsewhere and don't feel bad? You do not HAVE to start over every tlp cycle!

I just want cool shit to happen and people to have cool stories.

Elderan said:

Level locked servers only reward zerg guilds who just will throw 400 people at tormax when everyone is level 40. While it will be impossible to do in a DZ at that level for everyone else.

IMO if they do level locked then they need to remove all open world bosses to negate the zerg effect.

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If they do any sort of ranks, titles, special rewards, etc? Dz only. Seems like a fair compromise. Open world be as crazy as you want for pixels but doesn't count.

They are just testing the waters to see what they should release. And they will tweak it. Why would they want to release a server that no one plays on. They know the people that still love EQ. They will milk them.

When they initially announced Selo and Mangler everyone lost their shit over how assy the rules were and both were completely changed around.

They did not really change Selo's rules at all from announcement. All they changed was they relabeled it from the "Casual" server to the "Fast" server. Mangler they did revamp its rules because they were wildly unpopular, it had like mega-slow XP rate planned, double penalty from dying etc.

YttriumF said:

I really like the idea of a level locked GoD start. Can today's TLP players beat all of the raid content with Gate's original tuning it had on release?

edit ... typos

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Original tuning? Probably, while modern TLP have a ton of mouth breathers who can barely play, there is a nucleus of people who do the TLPs that are basically much better players than anyone was back in 2004. This is simply because of how MMO gaming has developed--it is the same reason even an "average" WoWC guild would have been World #1 if they were time machined back to 2005, learning all the ways to meta the fuck out of the game, all the ways to min max, all the ways to apply autism for max benefit etc lets you deploy a much more knowledgeable and strong player force than any guild could deploy in GoD back in '04. That being said while GoD has a reputation for being hard, it wasn't really hard in era because it was some mega high skill check--the first meaningful skill check in EQ is probably Vishimtar in DoN, which was still a few years off. GoD was mostly a brutal gearing check and just a lot of buggy content, and a last zone with mobs that hit so hard that you needed near-impossible to attain gear levels to beat it at level 65 given the lack of things like Dragon Glyphs etc. This is the main reason no guild beat Tunat before Omens, if the bosses just didn't hit so hard and they hadn't basically tuned them for level 70 when level cap was 65, likely a few top guilds would have beat it--several guilds did get through mega-bugged in-era Uqua, which was probably the biggest blocker prior to Tacvi itself.

I still suspect if you somehow could load the "old" GoD, a TLP min/max guild would beat it at level 65 just because of the reasons I've mentioned, but it would be annoying and unpleasant like a lot of things are. The biggest advantage the TLP guild would have is being able to meta DPS and aDPS a lot better which would help a lot, most GoD fights if you can get them dead fast you can limp to victory.

Not that this would ever be done--it would be crazy hard for DPG to somehow serve up for one server a version of GoD with exact, in-era tuning and class balance.

Sieger said:

Not that this would ever be done--it would be crazy hard for DPG to somehow serve up for one server a version of GoD with exact, in-era tuning and class balance.

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Modernize the EQMac client and use that.

Okay, it's easier said than actually done, but y'know...

The most hated expansion ever has finally redeemed itself and now most players like GoD? Quick reimplement the original broken version!

If we ever actually get dev resources I hope the first thing they do is a tuning pass so we can get out of this cycle of the same few classes being gods. Or something interesting like unlocking luclin aa in classic.

Pretty much zero people who have done GoD on TLP hate it, that's purely a relic of people who haven't played since 2004, or who have never taken a TLP past PoP/LDoN.

I've been of the mind for a while that the most enjoyable setup for TLPs is for them to just always release a Phinny clone, because there is a very significant playerbase who exclusively wants Classic start and "regular" unlock pace, and then use the other server to experiment with stuff. You may end up with servers people only play for a few months, but I actually think that is fine because it means people get to do new/interesting things, and DPG's bottom line gets covered by the money harvest they get to do on their Phinny clone for all the perma-cyclers.

Sieger said:

Pretty much zero people who have done GoD on TLP hate it, that's purely a relic of people who haven't played since 2004, or who have never taken a TLP past PoP/LDoN.

I've been of the mind for a while that the most enjoyable setup for TLPs is for them to just always release a Phinny clone, because there is a very significant playerbase who exclusively wants Classic start and "regular" unlock pace, and then use the other server to experiment with stuff. You may end up with servers people only play for a few months, but I actually think that is fine because it means people get to do new/interesting things, and DPG's bottom line gets covered by the money harvest they get to do on their Phinny clone for all the perma-cyclers.

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I agree with this, there is a huge player base that just loves the original trilogy and the pace and difficulty level of the early TLPs. I love ideas like mischief that stick with that theme but with a new twist.

The twist if any needs to be casual focused though, the ones that make the servers more hardcore like selos lockouts are never going to be popular with the mainstream audience. Mischiefs twist was perfect because it made loot so accessible and people love that. A level lock would be somewhat neutral for casuals I think. Most aren't 50 in the first month anyway so level locking at 45 for a month with a classic start just won't matter at all.

Is there a Wiki somewhere that lays out the typical progression schedule? Like, Vanilla for 3 months, Kunark for 2 months, Velious for 3 months, etc. A lot of the talk in this thread seems to be centered around the people who can play 16 hours per day, every single day.

Burren said:

Is there a Wiki somewhere that lays out the typical progression schedule? Like, Vanilla for 3 months, Kunark for 2 months, Velious for 3 months, etc. A lot of the talk in this thread seems to be centered around the people who can play 16 hours per day, every single day.

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This is the breakdown for Mischief for example

Burren said:

Is there a Wiki somewhere that lays out the typical progression schedule? Like, Vanilla for 3 months, Kunark for 2 months, Velious for 3 months, etc. A lot of the talk in this thread seems to be centered around the people who can play 16 hours per day, every single day.

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If you haven't played a TLP you'd probably be surprised how little time you actually need to spend. Outside of the initial leveling burden you don't really need to play much.

Mrniceguy said:

If you haven't played a TLP you'd probably be surprised how little time you actually need to spend. Outside of the initial leveling burden you don't really need to play much.

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This. Even being a top end raider in anything but the open world guild doesn't take that much time. I was the or nearly the best geared of my class for most of my time on Mangler and I played 4 hrs 3 nights a week to raid and then did an AA push whenever they had a XP bonus. The game is way more casual friendly than even WoW at this point, wow is just way more anti-social friendly.

Creslin said:

This. Even being a top end raider in anything but the open world guild doesn't take that much time. I was the or nearly the best geared of my class for most of my time on Mangler and I played 4 hrs 3 nights a week to raid and then did an AA push whenever they had a XP bonus. The game is way more casual friendly than even WoW at this point, wow is just way more anti-social friendly.

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So you're saying we should all be playing WOW?

Mrniceguy said:

If you haven't played a TLP you'd probably be surprised how little time you actually need to spend. Outside of the initial leveling burden you don't really need to play much.

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Bullshit.
If you want to be mediocre, then yeah, what you say above is true. If you want to minmax and be on the top game, then you'll have to put in a lot more than you think you do. and that means squeezing as much playtime as possible out of every bonus exp times.
Also, missing any expansions due to RL constraints will heavily influence your AA levels that no amount of AA Grants will even out.

for example. I played on Mangler from Classic till OoW, then had to take a break due to RL constraints. Came back in Serpent's Spine, stayed till SoD and taking a breaking now due to medical issues.
There were people's alts with more AA than I had. Sometimes you ask yourself what have I been doing with my time in EQ TLP's if I was on 2000 AA's in SoD where most of the other raiders were hitting 4-5k already.

EQ is very much a 90/10 game. Meaning you get 90% of the rewards for 10% of the effort and the last 10% of rewards for 90% of the effort.

Being mediocre in EQ means your like doing 5% less DPS and you take like 5% more dmg. It's really not a big deal for anything besides tanks.

EQ TLPs are very much a MMO you can get by playing like 8-10 hours a week.

It depends on the era, it gets harder and harder to come back because the number of aa goes up faster after TSS. Before TSS taking a break even for 6 months might only mean there are a few hundred new AA you really need

The guys with 5k AA are the same guys who had 1k AA in pop, atleast half of them are totally irrelevant and unnoticeable, another 25% are marginal at best like tank AA on non tanks or 1 more mana or hp regen, and then the final 25% are actually needed or you take noticeable hit to your DPS.

In EQ player skill and knowing when to use abilities is far more important than pure AA count, and making sure you are properly buffed, missing ranger buffs or something could be as big a hit to your DPS as losing half your AA and so many people on raids are super lazy.

If you lesson burn like 3-4 times per week for AA you are going to be just fine even if you miss all the holidays.

Looking forward to this, so I can spend a couple hundy on bags, and quit again in a month.

Seriously though, I am ready for another TPL; I am so fucking sick of Mokoko Seeds, Island Hearts, and fucking stupid boss gimmicks. I yearn for the purity of classic EQ. (Auto attack/Taunt/Kick...)

Looking for Kunark at launch, with truly random loot.