Upping the stakes with GoD

[Esvee]

Having red all the complaints about how hard GoD is, especially on the Paladin boards and having experienced it first-hand myself I can't help but thinking this was all done on purpose.

Yes, the 1 group trials really were meant to be this hard. Why?

There was a huge amount of guilds that was getting extremely bored farming Time and the EP s by the time GoD came out. LDoN raids weren't much of a diversion. So the designers in all their wisdom decided to create a few major hurdles (the 6-person trials, limiting raid numbers to 42, yard trash in ikkinz raids that hits for 1800 a pop) to prevent all but the most determined guilds from progressing. They knew well enough that people would be getting all the buffs they could get their hands on for entering the trials and they purposely tuned them to be nigh-on impossible without certain gear/AA/buff/class requirments.


Allready guilds like Afterlife are plowing their way through the new content. My own guild hacked its way through an Ikkinz raid today to find P 5 quality loot, which was admittedly a much harder (if shorter) raid than clearing Time.

The fallout of all of this has been somewhat dramatic to say the least. With them tuning this expansion towards the cream of the crop, just about everyone else is going to be marginalized and thus for them the expansion holds no really interesting content. To a certain extent even whole classes can be marginalized because of this elitist attitude, but I can understand why they did it.

Probably only 15-20% of the EQ population is actually able to achieve anything in GoD at the moment and for this reason I don t really see a need to rebalance all the classes (especially tanks) just because this small group of people is finding a certain number of encounters too hard.

Eventually strategies will become common knowledge and they may even waver the flagging requirements like they did in PoP once they have held back the best guilds long enough.

[shadowedspawn]

edit: removed comments to avoid any strife.

[Fumm]

Ya well this is the "Overlord sanctuary" not the 5.1khp Knight forum, and I agree with him.

[shadowedspawn]

EDIT: removed comments to avoid strife

[Pahtoonya]

/hugs Shadowedspawn and /turn-on Fumm's Sarcasmometer.

^_^



-----ogress of pink~

[Cily]

Smaller guilds can get great stuff out of GoD.

All they have to do is stop being afraid to try... and if that fails, stop sucking.

My guild is way from uber, but I see a lot of potential for gear here. /shrug

Yea... we wont be hitting later tiers, but we didnt hit later PoP tiers either. This is not exactly shocking news to us.

Now... there is always the possibility that SoE will nerf some of the achievable stuff and make it crap for us, but I remain hopeful at the moment =)

Cily

[gulug]

If that was directed at me Fumm sorry if you think I over stepped my bounds. I'll be on my way and try to keep quiet.

Shadow, just ignore tardish comments like that.

[Fumm]

I dont see whats wrong with pointing out thats its high level content, ( Ikknz - trials specificly) they are meant to be the way they are, im tired of reading all these sob stories about people complaining that they are way too hard. They are not, not for the loot to be had, if anything they are too easy. I doubt those of you who are acting like im an asshole, have ever even stepped foot in Ikknz, let alone Kod'Taz, if you dont know what your talking about, dont post, its really simple.

Edit- In no way am I trying to disrespect anyone here, I am simply telling it like it is.

if your offended, sorry.

[shadowedspawn]

EDIT: removed comments to avoid strife

[Sorguran]

GoD poses the problem of seeming too intimidating, much more than it honestly is.

This IS the Overlord's sanctuary, so, if you don't want elitism shoved down your throat, don't come here.

There are other forums for posting complaints about GoD, right here is a praise that it keeps stuff to fewer, and more skilled.

[edit: while it is the overlords sanctuary, launching attacks directed at other peoples charchters is pretty uncool!]

[Phantron]

Ikkinz raids are a joke on difficulty. It's almost as if they made the trials impossibly tedious (if looking at a guild progression POV)to compensate, though I'm more inclined to agree with Furor's explanation that some data just never made it to live from beta.

Sorry, don't play the difficulty card here. The raids you require the trials for are arguably easier than the trial themselves. Certainly a Knight that can tank trial 1 wouldn't have any problem tanking anything in the raids at least up to raid 4 (the Altar Sentries do have pretty high DPS and disc helps a lot there).

Trails are too hard, and raids are too easy. Assuming everyone needs the trials are necessary for progression, they're also too tedious at their current state.

[shadowedspawn]

EDIT: removed comments to avoid strife

Changed all my posts as I want to avoid any contention w/ the posters on this board. If one of the mods wishs to remove them then please do.

[Haramdar]

I've always felt exp should be more laid back and relaxing (not boring, but still) and raids should pretty much be eye-bleeding hard. So far this expansion feels the opposite. You have 4 basic jobs in EQ, heal - tank - dps - crowd control, for these 4 basic jobs you have... 14 classes is it now? Obviously it's going to be hard to make "hard" exp content without pushing the best of those jobs down your throat, which is why I feel raids are the better suited environment for challenging play.

Trials are pretty much just a roadblock that says "do not pass if your tank doesn't have _hp, your cleric doesn't have _mana" while raids are a joke (when you can get them to fucking work, but that's another rant)

[Fumm]

Agreed, the raids need to be ramped up to thier original spec. Currently the only Ikkinz raid I have spent more than 2 hours on or made me scratch my head is trancendence, and it wasnt because it was hard in anyway, it was more just figuring out how the humongous pile of flaming dog feces at the end worked. But it eventually died in a gimped fasion like the rest.

[Fynepisa]

I think GoD is good for anybody who has drive. I play in a small group of friends. We have a maximum of 12 chracters, none of which has been guilded in ages. We get all our gear with a maximum of 12 reasonably equipped characters or through the bazaar. Even for us GoD has been wonderful. We are only at tipd, and have picked up a lot of upgrades. I'm planning on hitting a brick wall at Ikkinz, but if you put forth some effort, the loot you can get up until that point is better than anything else you will find without at least a raiding elemental+ guild. That seems pretty good to me. A non high end raiding character can't get the great loot from any expansion, but GoD rewards the motivated non uber equipped character more than any expansion I have experienced.

Other than the buggy content the high end players appear to be facing, GoD seems to be have the best progress system in a long time. Reward those who take risks and push themselves, whether they only have small numbers or large numbers. To me, this is what everyone asked for. I think the "non uber" people complaining are people who thought they wanted a challenge, but really just wanted free stuff without working for it.

[Aonodorus]

That is very true. Gearing yourself in GoD in a small group manner is very easy. Between spawning nameds in KT, getting random drops off mobs in the zone, and the drops in the single group Ikkinz trials, you can get a pretty well equipped character.

The raids are very easy in comparison to the difficulty of beating the trials, this is true. However, I'd be hard pressed to find many people that have beaten them that would want to see them weakened any more. The challenge was a welcome change for alot of the guilds that have spent the last 6-7 months on autopilot farming PoTime. Now I know there's going to be people who complain about not being able to beat it with their best geared people, but that's why potime and yxxta and the summoner ring are here. Learn em, kill em, gear up and farm em. Then come back to the ikkinz trials and then you'll see what we've been saying all along. They're not that bad, it's a great step in the game to provide a challenge to test your gear and problem solving skills as a player.

[Doomflayer]

Originally posted by Sorguran
This IS the Overlord's sanctuary, so, if you don't want elitism shoved down your throat, don't come here.There are other forums for posting complaints about GoD, right here is a praise that it keeps stuff to fewer, and more skilled.
[edit: while it is the overlords sanctuary, launching attacks directed at other peoples charchters is pretty uncool!]

I don't think "elite" and "skilled" are the words you are looking for, I could throw around "addicted" and "compulsive" also. EQ was designed as a GIANT time sink to make the highest end encounters. Thats not something I am interested in at all, and not worth the time/effort involved for a game. I rather work on my 1968 Mustang or 1985 383 stroker/10 second vette.
But, that being said, for under 8k Tanks to be complaining about the encounters is just.....silly. The Paladins will go right to the masses (who have no idea what is going on) and start screaming "we been nerfed!" to get them to react also. Then Paladins get rebalanced for one set of trials, screwing up game balance across the board, yet again.
But SOE better not expect to ever sell another expansion like this again, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

[arbosch]

You dont see the problem.

Problem is that this are not raids. This are trials for single groups.
The problem is not between warrior and knights. The problem is that we all hate it to wait. If you dont play a warrior, cleric or enchanter you have to wait that they log in. You find it good that i have to wait that you log in to do something and you dont need me to do something. But i hate it. Even the greatest idiot will see that when you have 16 classes and from this 16 classes 13 classes will have to wait most of there time that 3 other classes log in to do stuff the players which play this 13 classes will not be happy with the situation.

They need to fix it an the best way is to limit the melee damage from the mobs and increase there non melee damage to keep it interesting. A groupe with cleric, warrior will need less healing for direct melee damage but in the ae they will get bigger problems because the cleric have to split up his heals to the groupe. The knight druid groupe will have it harder for direct melee damage but the knight can suppor the groupe with groupeheals to support the druid. Then it is a good balance but not the bullshit we have now.

Arbosch Bloodforge

[sowy]

You know being a needed class isn't all cotton candy and roses. Especially if you're just one notch under what you need to be to tank these.

Arbosh: "The problem is that we all hate it to wait. If you dont play a warrior, cleric or enchanter you have to wait that they log in


The people left out of the kod'taz trials form a raid and:

A) Farm components for the raids.
B) Farm augments. spells and gear.
C) Offer support/backup for the people doing trials including refreshing buffs, performing CR.


BTW. Before anyone says that it's not possible to raid Kod'taz without warriors and clerics.... Druids and whatnot really do fine enough *because* the mobs die so freaking fast and the normal kod'taz mobs are actually pretty easy.



It's really not so bad.

[Flair]

Smaller guilds can get great stuff out of GoD

Hell yes!! Lots of nice stuff drops of yard trash from even the 3 "entry" zones.

I like GoD just because it, well, puts the fear of GoD in people.

[Fumm]

Problem is that this are not raids. This are trials for single groups.

Since when is somthing thats for a single group suppose to be easy, Ive done the trials, I think they are very much doable, secondly, these trials ARE for raid equiped players, when I do them, I do not go in with the mindset of "oh this is just some one group jack off party", I go in on a mission, I have an objective to complete with five other very skilled, experianced and geared raiders. The last thing you need to do is let yourself be blinded to the facts just because of the player limit is only 6. Besides, those trials are not hard, with the exception of 1 single encounter "Diabolic Destroyer" (has been kind of bugging - summoning at 100% etc..) which is more just a pain in the ass if anything. (ill give you an exclusivive hint, damage shields are your friend!)

I think thats all I have to say about "single group" encounters.

-edit i can count, really..

[wudedorm]

why do people whine there is plenty of content if you do not want to hit GoD? If dont like it dont buy it or dont go...
Myself I have been to busy still in PoP to do much GoD, 1 trial try got to end and found casters couldnt cast under water on the mobs= dead tank and cleric after, end of trial. Will I be going back? sure when not busy in PoP.
Am I big bad in terms of some of the tanks here? nah...but im working on it :P

[Brodda Thep]

I don't think the raids are too easy for the reward. The reward is time level and these are time level encounters. Time is a push over just as much as these trails are, but time also drops FAR more items than these trials for the same amount of time. Sure some items are quarm level, but then quarm is also a pushover anymore.

In raid four we had to kill named golems till we figured out what killed them. They are called altar sentries and each had 500,000hp. The dps for each one was on average 2500dps. What is funny is that this is easy. No AEs, no rampage, yet these stupid named golems outdps any god in Time. Only VZ and RZ are close. And we killed those golems a total of 9 times before moving on.

It is the next level that I expect to really challenge a long time Time clearing guild.

The reason previous encounters seem so hard compared to these is that you can fail. You can run out of time, they can despawn, you can reach a death limit. None of which is true in the new raids, so it seems easy. And yes, I suppose not being able to fail does make it easy. Should they put timer limits on the trials? If a golem in the boss fight of raid two and three loses agro, should it despawn? Perhaps they should make it so that if you tether the bosses the entire event should start over again from scratch. /shrug

[arbosch]

You see you guys think it is easy. Why ?

You play a damm warrior.

I think they are damm hard. Why ?

Because it is a damm pain to find a warrior. I think the damm trials are to easy with a warrior as tank. You have to be an idiot if you waste 2 or 3 hours from your time with a 20% chance to win when we can have a 90% win with a warrior as tank.

I hate it to find a cleric, enchanter and waiting on warrior and see cleric log and then warrior log in and 20 minutes later the enchanter log etc. This is bullshit. This is a new expansion and for sure i will go there and not make the same shit i done the last year. Noone with a little brain can say the solution is that we do stuff out of GoD to solve the problem in GoD. There are no problem out of GoD, but GoD is broken not because the class balance it is broken because the design of the mobs.

Only that you guys dont have this problem and the other classes have this problem show how fucked this is.

Arbosch Bloodforge

[Brackon]

Originally posted by arbosch
You dont see the problem.

Problem is that this are not raids. This are trials for single groups.
The problem is not between warrior and knights. The problem is that we all hate it to wait. If you dont play a warrior, cleric or enchanter you have to wait that they log in. You find it good that i have to wait that you log in to do something and you dont need me to do something. But i hate it. Even the greatest idiot will see that when you have 16 classes and from this 16 classes 13 classes will have to wait most of there time that 3 other classes log in to do stuff the players which play this 13 classes will not be happy with the situation.

They need to fix it an the best way is to limit the melee damage from the mobs and increase there non melee damage to keep it interesting. A groupe with cleric, warrior will need less healing for direct melee damage but in the ae they will get bigger problems because the cleric have to split up his heals to the groupe. The knight druid groupe will have it harder for direct melee damage but the knight can suppor the groupe with groupeheals to support the druid. Then it is a good balance but not the bullshit we have now.

Arbosch Bloodforge

You need to think outside the box my man. The reality is, in PoP hybrids got some glory status. They could be used for MT. There was your bone. If you like it, stay in PoP. In order to make the game progressively harder, it was necessary to make encounters hard enough that you needed to use specialty classes, not general purpose classes.
Give it a couple of months and hybrids will once again be tanking in GoD like they did in PoP. I guess you all forgot that you did not just wake up and start tanking in PoP, it took a couple of months.

[Partha]

Problem is that this are not raids. This are trials for single groups.

No, these are raid content, and the problem is that Paladins are looking at the number 6 and refusing to take the content into consideration. I will repeat for the class: Name another XP mob that quads for 2100 and gives you a flag. Sony has brought you a new roadblock dressed in old clothes and you're looking at the clothes rather than what's in them.

[arbosch]

Well make no sense to talk with yo when you think this is a PoP problem.

1.) Show me the 5 levels we get.
2.) Show me the increase in spell power we get with this 5 levels.

Okay so if this is raidcontent. If they make a trial where a named hit for 900 and every 20 seconds he ae for 3000 unresistable range 300. Make that there are traps everywhere so you need a roque. Make that there are adds which need to get messed so you need a enchanter. Make that This give the best source of single groupe loot and give a flag. Will this mobs be okay then. If every named mob is like this will this then be okay?

It will give paladins total domination over warriors without make a difference to yours and our skills. If you really think this stuff in GoD is okay. Then go petition that they make all GoD nameds to this art of mobs and sit down and wait that paladins log in or go back to PoP. I am sure everyone which agree with this bullshit will be the first which start to post how this will suck. That they have to wait on roque, enchanter, cleric, paladin, support healer and then have to fight for the last slot against the other 'not needed' classes. It sucks and you try to defend something which is total broken.

Arbosch Bloodforge

[Partha]

Okay so if this is raidcontent. If they make a trial where a named hit for 900 and every 20 seconds he ae for 3000 unresistable range 300. Make that there are traps everywhere so you need a roque. Make that there are adds which need to get messed so you need a enchanter. Make that This give the best source of single groupe loot and give a flag. Will this mobs be okay then. If every named mob is like this will this then be okay?

Traps can be disarmed by two classes, Rogues and Bards.

Mezzes can be done by three classes, Enchanters, Bards, and Necromancers. (I guess four if you count Mages, but not much in the way of summoned boss mobs)

As far as okay? Fine with me. Tank/Mezzer/Trap specialist leaves 3 slots open. And (This is the tricky point, I guess).........

If you're in a EP/Time guild, when do they ever exclude classes from gearing runs?Go ahead, Arbosch. Name ONE EB/Time guild that doesn't gear up its' members for the next level of raid content.

Whether Warriors would get it first time or later, they'll see the gear because it's smart for the guild to gear them up for the next level. Just like it will be smart to gear up the guild Paladins for the next level. If you're REALLY concerned about your guild advancing, your guild > your ego.

[arbosch]

***
Traps can be disarmed by two classes, Rogues and Bards.

Mezzes can be done by three classes, Enchanters, Bards, and Necromancers. (I guess four if you count Mages, but not much in the way of summoned boss mobs)

As far as okay? Fine with me. Tank/Mezzer/Trap specialist leaves 3 slots open. And (This is the tricky point, I guess).........
***

So it is okay that other classes have to share there spot but warriors should not have to share there spot.

Thanks that you agree with me that every spot need more then 1 class to fit in and for tanking this is warrior, shadowknights, paladins. If this is not the case in single groupe situation the content is broken or the class is broken.

Arbosch Bloodforge

[Phantron]

The Altar Sentries are a joke compared to VZ/RZ. They die under 3 minutes to a group of 54, which guaranteeds you can tank one under disc. They are also slowable. Here's a really simple strat that will guaranteed you a win on Altar Sentries. Have every cleric and druid target MT and then hit Supernal Remedy/Light or Nature/Sylvan Infusion over and over for 3 minutes. Barring a miracle round for the Sentries you'll have a dead sentry 3 minutes later. If you want to go again, just use another warrior (you have more than one of those, don't you?).

Maybe if for some reason you wanted to fight an Altar Sentry unslowed and undisced they'd do 2500 DPS on you but realistically their DPS is a complete non issue. We even fought one at spawn point once so we had 2 of them back to back. Try doing that with VZ or RZ, or even any of the weaker Gods.

[Cily]

So it is okay that other classes have to share there spot but warriors should not have to share there spot.

A bard is inferior to a rogue at trap springing.

A necro is inferior to mezzing to a chanter.

A knight is inferior to warrior in tanking the hard core raid named.

I am indifferent at the moment on this issue, but you are not making a point with that statement. Warriors do share their spot, but they are still best at it.

Unless of course, what you were saying is that when looking for CC, you readily accept a necro instead of a chanter.

Cily

[arbosch]

Warriors dont share his spot with knights in GoD. This is the problem. You can not take a knight for this nameds and other exp. groupe nameds because the lack of disciplines. So warrior are the only class which can effectiv tank nameds without a very, very high risk to loose (warrior 90% win, knight 20% win).

If you come back with gear. Gear will not solve the problem. The problem are disciplines and we cant neutralize them with gear or you give us the Breastplate of retardness (instant right click 3 minute defensive reuse time 10 minutes) which will a damm poor way to solve this problem.

Arbosch Bloodforge

[brutall]

Phantron, I usually see eye to eye with you on things but I respectfully disagree with you on raid difficulty. Currently every single guild that is doing the raids has more than 42 people in their guild. Raids don't require "sorting" players in their current state where you have to bring 12 clerics and your 3rd shaman is screwed. Running two instances with a less than optimal crew and it is very cool because their are 84 spots open. Instead of 30 or 40 people standing around everyone gets to play.

[Brodda Thep]

I don't know about that. We have yet to fill up the 54 person raid.

[Haramdar]

defensive should just be removed

[JanSorensen]

We just killed 8-10 Altar Sentries back to back with the same warrior tanking and 45 people - they are a complete joke damage wise.

That we havent figured out how to stop them from respawning is a joke on us though :)

[sowy]

Haramdar said "defensive should just be removed"


SACRILEGE!! Mods, ban this man!

[The Cromn]

This post has degraded to something that should be in The Outhouse, not here. Same old war vs hybrid stuff.

[Phantron]

While 42 is too few I think it's pretty hard to fill up 84. Granted you probably don't need the full 42 to win but unless you're very careful at balancing your raids chances are at least 1 out of your 2 raids will be a bit too weak. Granted the raids are still easy but it means you could fail a trial that is otherwise trivial and no one likes that.

[sowy]

They should have a discipline that acts like Defensive but prevents them from casting spells for a day :p see how much they like it then.

[Barraind]

And defensive disallows incite/mastruq and anger/time snap/ect procs right? Didnt think so~

We can go on all day about knight/warrior balance... in one of the other 8 billion threads on it

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well I sure am very happy with GoD. I run a Chanter, Cleric, Warrior and 3 wizards probably an optimal group from what everyone is talking about here.

I never got in a guild so my PoP progression was poor but with GoD I can advance as far as I am able. I just take my time and kill tons of mobs in one area before moving on. Been a week in the first trial first sewer room but am starting to move to the 2nd. Im not complaining, got a 1 in 100 chanch of a high quality item drop with every kill and exp is solid. If I play well I don't die, if I make a tiny slip its a wipe or evac.....

You just have to be patient, a quality 6 person group will advance... slow but sure. You didn't kill quarm at level 1 so you have to slowly work your way up. As soon as you get to the sewers or even clearing the zone in areas of the 3 city zones you will get good exp and a long shot chance of a quality item drop, what more can you ask for. Keep doing that until you are strong enough to move forward.

[sowy]

A-person-who-lacks-thought said: "And defensive disallows incite/mastruq and anger/time snap/ect procs right? Didnt think so~"

How can you justify comparing one skill, incite, with an entire class full of spells? And in case you didn't notice, you have weapon procs too. We COULD go on and on about class balance that's true.... but at least use logic in your post please. :/

[Haramdar]

you don't think your class saving grace of planes of power being a 3 minute disc wasn't lame?

i want content that isn't balanced around defensive is all, it's old and boring. no single group should require it, it's the main reason trials are fucked up for knights, in my opinion.

[sowy]

Originally posted by Haramdar
you don't think your class saving grace of planes of power being a 3 minute disc wasn't lame?

This... is an opinion that much more makes sense to me. But there are many times my warrior wishes it could cast res (without an expensive stick) group heal, quick heal, proc insane undead crit dmg, cast a worthwhile group spell, be able to LOY the cleric in a pinch etc.


No sir what Paladins need is not mini-defensive....... but for 33% of named encounters to near-require a paladin.... Example.

A mob that AEs enough that it needs healing, but the mob hits hard enough that the cleric needs to be on the tank.

A mob that fears the tank, like Cazic (god I got the right name for some reason I always mess up.)

A mob that will cast X spell (could be a casting time version of DT, but it'd have to be a spell that you couldn't allow to succeed to cast or the encounter fails) X spell could be interrupted by a Paladin stun but no other stun works.


What we are all witnessing here is the problem with this many classes. :-) Sometimes simplicity is better...........

[Haramdar]

not sure if you're implying i said knights shoud get a mini-defensive, they shouldn't

those are nice ideas, but i still get irked when people think the warrior class was "fine" because i could take less damage for 3 minutes, what a fix! this is pretty pointless though, sorry for starting it - since we're talking about a year old expansion now, can continute it in a few months if you want. altough eventually i think things will go back to the way they were in pop, we'll see.

also a small opinion on your first note about paladin and requirement for ae'ing mobs -

only way i see this as being possible is if it ae's to the point that more damage is taken in then CR can heal, but slow enough that a paladin group heal is needed to add some occasional boost. reason for this is if it's to fast paladins are going to go oom, if it's to slow CR is all you need, and with 7 or so clerics you can keep CR up a long ass time.

What we are all witnessing here is the problem with this many classes. :-) Sometimes simplicity is better...........

agree - this is the basis for all class problems really, no class ever has an issue without comparing to another class, evidence there's to much mix

[Dafrog]

GoD was meant to be difficult, and was meant to provide the most difficult challenges thus far. It is not another LoY. The developers said it was targeted for the upper upper, and we understood it that way. It was designed to give groups of people having finished PoT something to do. Also, the expansion was designed for 6 man groups at certain zones/places. There is some content for non-time guilds etc., but all in all the emphasis of this expansion was to provide difficulty harder than prior expansions.

I say provide it more than a month of going live before making judgement calls.

[Ainian]

Where the HELL does it state that Knights should be able to utilize ALL of their utility, ALL of the time?

Because a Knight can't tank these trials, it makes them useless? Hardly.

Have you seen a SHD burst DPS on ANY named in these trials? A SHD totally triviliazes trial 2, while off-tanking the 2nd Priest, and pulling (or assisting the pulling) the entire trial too. Our SHD have no problems filling a role on any of these trials -- it may not be tanking -- but they have a role and have no issues with it.

And this is just SHD. . don't get me started on how awesome Paladins are. .

Seriously, some of you whiney Knights need to get the fuck out of this "God Complex" that was granted to you in PoP, and accept that you can do more than JUST tank.

Stop sucking at your class, and learn to take advantage of the massive amount of utility available to you. I know our Knights are. .

[Shaiel]

GoD has been a pretty decent expansion so far for several reasons.

1 - Raid limits of 54 (they were upped from 42 on different servers at different times). No more massive/constant recruiting to try and keep raids around 60+. People play better with less people around.

2 - This shit is rough, but not rediculously hard. Meaning; Summoner circle can be rough, but generally winnable after a try or two. But that doesn't mean it's a cake walk the next time, either. Single group mobs that can smack your defensive ass down in 4 rounds, etc. I reallly, really like how you can take a raid of mid 20's and spawn the Forlon event in Kod, get some flags, and a nice Time level item out of it, and watch half the clerics die every time we do it.

3 - unique encounters. Not every encounter is blindly-attack-and-kill-mob-X. A lot of the fights have different phases to them, and you never quite know what to expect. There's no one trick to every fight.

4 - keeps the gimps out. Annoying, yes, but thank God for flagging zones that like to randomly kill people with trains and see invis mobs. Forces people to think a little or they'll log from the frustration of begging for their 8th rez of the night.

5 - flagging system (so far). No more of the PoP BS of "we're raiding, but sorry, you don't have that flag. Have a nice night of exping alone".

People who are saying these single group trials are too hard, or only warriors can do them, etc; wake the fuck up. If anything, these trials are now TOO EASY. Trial 1? Bring an enchanter, makes it trivial. Trial 2? Don't be a dumbass and aggro both bosses at the same time. Trial 3? Hello? You can take as much time as you want between killing the 3 archers. The toughest part out of any of these 3 trials is the first mini-boss in Trial 1, and the last time I did him, both my healers had 40m left. Super-l33t-sekrits? Damage shields!

I'm sick and tired of hearing Paladins/SK bitch and moan about these trials. Paladins/SKs have/are beating these trials, and I don't just mean the top 10 knights in EQ rankings. I'm talking average joe knight in a Time guild that didn't join yesterday. Get past the first mob in the first trial, and consider the rest of them done. Risk of failure a bit higher with a Knight? Sure, but hey, at least you can rez yourself to try again.

[Battleblade]

If Sam Deathwalker beats Trial 1, then any member of any class that can't better go back to LDoN easy or reroll.

Seriously, those members of any class that can't beat the first 6 trials aren't ready for GoD beyond. SoE may wave them through the kiddie entrance and their guild may carry them through the content beyond, but it is painfully obvious what the trials were supposed to do.

Nice derail though.

Tell me more about Kod'taz - (btw Chaos Epidemic is teh suke).

BB

[Eagleclaw]

The trials are good the way they are. On our server, the guilds that have been in time for a while now claim they are to easy and should be harder. This tells me that, if you have the gear and AA, the folks who should be getting through are getting through.

If your finding it's really challenging.. your probably no the edge. If your finding it impossibly difficult, you probably need to go farm some more.

Thats balanced progression IMO and it's nothing new. It's been that way for every major expansion ever.

E.C.

[Drep]

I for one am glad these things are somewhat difficult. You have to love people crying about things being to hard. People play this game for different reasons. You can't expect new content to be the same as a stupid ldon mission.

Where the hell is the fun at if you just look at a mob and it dies? Shit needs to get harder and progressively get harder. If the folks cry that they have to run through 4 zones of mobs that hit for 1300 or so then cry away! While you are crying, I will get an invis and run through it! If I die along the way, someone else coming through will drag me to a safe spot. Oh, thats so hard! lol What is the use of leveling and getting more gear if the game doesnt progress into harder things?

I want to be hit for 2k on a normal trash mob! Make your group work for some things for a change instead of thinking you can just go somewhere and slaughter it. Grow some balls and get dangerous. Don't be freaking afraid to die and lose exp.

Drep

[Tsaotsao]

I tried trial 6 last night as MT. 7700hp, 1400 AC. I'm in the process of app'ing to an elemental guild, and I need one more mob for Time (PoFire flagged just recently myself).

It was fun to try. Pretty painful with the lag. I'd see 2k in hits and then be dead. If it weren't for the lag, we would have probably been fine.. would have been a challenge still, but I think we would have made it.

I need to work on gear some more, and build up some more AA (have all my HP AA done and a couple more).
One thing I saw in this. You need to be full LDoN equipped (the 1492 cost gear) or elemental equipped, to play in here. Maybe full Ornate will do, but there is little room for error. This is not the place to be grabbing raw pick-up groups.

So far, it's been a lot of fun. A real challenge. We took the Smith Rondo encounter down on our second or third try, then it took several more for the next success. This expansion forces solid teamwork and strategy.

I'm sure parts need tweaking here and there, but I can't really speak to that. What I have seen so far seems right on target. Only raid drop I've seen I was remotely interested in, was an elemental level 1HS with a poor agro proc from the Smith Rondo encounter.

[IgneousKB]

That 1hs is a special case usage only too, seeing as it has a knockback of 15. That's in the league of 'across the room' kind of. Useful in a variety of situations, but not for general tanking.

Remember how you sometimes hate paladins who use serenity too much, or in wrong places? That's a pushback of a mere 5 ...

[aspit]

Originally posted by Esvee
Having red all the complaints about how hard GoD is, especially on the Paladin boards and having experienced it first-hand myself I can't help but thinking this was all done on purpose.

Yes, the 1 group trials really were meant to be this hard. Why?

There was a huge amount of guilds that was getting extremely bored farming Time and the EP s by the time GoD came out. LDoN raids weren't much of a diversion. So the designers in all their wisdom decided to create a few major hurdles (the 6-person trials, limiting raid numbers to 42, yard trash in ikkinz raids that hits for 1800 a pop) to prevent all but the most determined guilds from progressing. They knew well enough that people would be getting all the buffs they could get their hands on for entering the trials and they purposely tuned them to be nigh-on impossible without certain gear/AA/buff/class requirments.


Allready guilds like Afterlife are plowing their way through the new content. My own guild hacked its way through an Ikkinz raid today to find P 5 quality loot, which was admittedly a much harder (if shorter) raid than clearing Time.

The fallout of all of this has been somewhat dramatic to say the least. With them tuning this expansion towards the cream of the crop, just about everyone else is going to be marginalized and thus for them the expansion holds no really interesting content. To a certain extent even whole classes can be marginalized because of this elitist attitude, but I can understand why they did it.

Probably only 15-20% of the EQ population is actually able to achieve anything in GoD at the moment and for this reason I don t really see a need to rebalance all the classes (especially tanks) just because this small group of people is finding a certain number of encounters too hard.

Eventually strategies will become common knowledge and they may even waver the flagging requirements like they did in PoP once they have held back the best guilds long enough.

ok without tell you how completely retarded you are, god is an end game expansion, it isnt loy, it isnt ldon, it is for guilds who have farmed time to progress. Not guilds who wipe to arbitor, xegony, reparm ect. If you havent farmed time for a few months you DO NOT BELONG HERE. And how do you know you dont belong herer?, very simple lol you get ass raped when you zone in. omfgz? bored of farming elemental to advance? welcome to the shit every guild who is past you had to go through. Suck it up, stop crying and deal with it.

[zito]

Originally posted by aspit
ok without tell you how completely retarded you are, god is an end game expansion, it isnt loy, it isnt ldon, it is for guilds who have farmed time to progress. Not guilds who wipe to arbitor, xegony, reparm ect. If you havent farmed time for a few months you DO NOT BELONG HERE. And how do you know you dont belong herer?, very simple lol you get ass raped when you zone in. omfgz? bored of farming elemental to advance? welcome to the shit every guild who is past you had to go through. Suck it up, stop crying and deal with it.

Not the Outhouse, and my apologies for that, but I gotta respond. Aspit, you are truly a twit. Without saying how completely retarded you are, I'll say this. If you could read, you would see that Esvee is saying the exact same thing. His comment is that *surprise* this is an end game expansion, and the reason that ppl/knights are bitching that it's too hard, is because they *surprise* haven't mastered previous content. Because of the above facts, as Esvee says, there is no need to worry about rebalancing, because the content IS balanced for those top-tier guilds whom it's aimed at.

[Gront]

Zito, whatever meds you're taking that allow you to come even that close to suffering fools gladly, I want a dose. Congratulations on a far more restrained use of invective than I would have been capable of, had I bothered responding to that drivel in the first place. :-)

Gront Warrior 65
Graa Beastlord 65
Kheysa Meatus
Ayonae Ro

[Madronedorf]

Ikkinz raids are much easier then time imo heh

[Shaiel]

Ikkinz raids are a joke. Figure out the trick to it, and it becomes a farm.

Ikkinz single group trials are where the real fun is.

[Nagellom]

Ya know my guild is only recently elemental and we mostly have VT level gear, yet my usual exp night crew has been doing GoD and doing damn well. Makes me tend to agree that GoD is balanced right cause we are jsut on the lower border of what GoD aimed at and we do well in the trials. Been doing Vxed recently and went to tipt the other night. Sure we die a bit but what the hell, we are just on the lower edge of the GoD table so we should struggle a bit. It's supposed to be a challenge to flat out hard, for us and it is.

[wyndaria]

For what it's worth, everyone seems to think that the first 8 or 9 zones of GoD don't exist... I know, that for elemental and time guilds, these zones are pretty lame, but I just don't understand why people think this expansion is for end game only!

I don't get it at all. With bazarre equipable folks, most decently skilled groups could hunt for gear in Riwwi, Barindu, and the first 4 trials. Not to mention Qinimi (Natimbi is too lame to even mention :) for those that aren't quite there yet. There's appropriately good gear to be had in those zones, even if the xp isn't all that great.

The point is that the expansion does have content for people not at the end game, up to 40% of this expansion in fact... which is even more content than was available when PoP first came out.

/boggle.

And, as for being hard, yer right. GoD IS hard, and I like it that way! The change of high dps, low hp mobs makes for very fun, challenging play. The first 4 trials are a blast for my groups (which is just crossing over to the 'hard' ldon line). They effectively amount to high XP zones with great loot and no time limit. The whole expansion is heavily focused on group hunting, as opposed to the huge zergs that EQ had evolved into pre LDoN and pre GoD.

We need more expansions like GoD, for sure!

Wyndaria.