This is all just my perspective. I’m not tagging anyone on it, feel free to ignore it, I do not expect (nor am I asking for) anything to change as a result of me typing this - my only goal is to give feedback because the server is in testing and pointing out what I see working (and not working) is part of testing to my mind.
Yep, it's been two weeks, and I've played a variety of alts.
I was really intrigued about the 'Rebuild' take on an Everquest server and drawn in by the 'make EQ fun again' proposition. I've found the reality of it to be a bit of a mixed bag, both bad and good. Some 'rebuilds' make a marked positive improvement to the classic experience. Other changes, to my mind, fundamentally change the gameplay for the worse.
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The community is just plain awesome, it embodies the very best of what I remember from back in the day.
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Cleric and Paladin gameplay is just what I always dreamed they could be, fantastic for a good ole undead hunting spree.
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Rogue has plenty of tricks up its sleeve for bringing dps to a group or raid, and has some perks thrown in so it’s solo viable if you aim for light blues (just like a solo melee should expect to do). The first rogue talent tree (Assassin) is totally awesome, every single point spent there is a point well spent.
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Mage isn’t a mage - it’s a wizard without any spell variety so it can’t switch spell lines when a mob is resistant to one, accompanied by a completely worthless pet (when the pet should be the class’ defining trait). Except, in addition to the lack of spell variety, the mage also doesn’t get root or any type of snare. It plays like a hard hitting wizard with no root - The mage rebuild completely misses the mark that the cleric and pally rebuilds hit the bullseye on. The undead hunters ended up feeling like ‘OMG YES, this is what I always wanted in a Cleric/Pally’ - the mage feels like ‘so I hit hard, but my pet’s worthless and I don’t even get a snare, kind of a ripoff’, definitely less fun than a classic mage.
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The funnest classes, cleric and paladin, end up un-fun in the 50’s because the end boss in ToFS was made into a Tier mob so there’s no possibility of a ‘I soloed ToFS’ victory, and Veksar’s not in game - so the undead pretty much dry up.
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Rogue has what, to my mind, are quite important talents for dps buried deep in trees 1 and 3 (Lesson and Thieve’s Affinity), one of which must be sacrificed if the rogue wants to go 10 points in the middle tree to give a group mana. And, apparently the rogue really needs to do this because Enchanter is so awful no one mains one. Additionally, rogue trees have many worthless talents, for instance 10 points in throwing weapons in the third tree (Throwing Precision and Deadly Dagger) and the final talent in that tree (Hidden Dagger) just isn’t practical to use because unless the chance to not get adds is 100%, it’s just not worth the risk of tossing that dagger. In the middle tree, Slight distraction only works in a group, which renders it useless, if the rogue is in a group why would they need a chance for the mob to miss them, the mob shouldn’t even be trying to hit them, it should be aiming at the tank.
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Monk - many of the talents are just silly to the point of being useless. Stoic Mind - higher resists unless you’re low health (when you need them most). Slow Heart Rate - enemies forget you on FD if you’re damn near dead (having played a monk main for years, that low health FD is ridiculously rare, talent is maybe useful on one pull in a thousand). Mirror - only works when you’re full health, and gives evade, which only works if you’re being hit so if you get agro, one hit gets through, then the talent is useless. Moving Mountains - completely worthless, who wants someone in their group just randomly knocking a mob back so all the melee have to reposition. Tranquility - when the group is already on a med break, you regen health faster, and it doesn’t work when you’re solo and it might actually be useful. Chakra - won’t save you solo because it won’t work if you’re being attacked, and probably won’t save you in a group because it’ll only top you up to 10% and if you’re below 10% you’re getting hit by aoe that’ll likely eat that last 10% on the next aoe.
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Bard - is just broken. Charm sucks so much mana it’s unusable. With the recent patch, bard’s ok in a group as a buff bot, but the traditional ‘I’m a bard, I can travel around and adventure anywhere and with enough skill mezz and charm my way to dungeon mastery’ is just dead. The ‘rebuild’ aspect of bard does give them more utility in a group, but any benefit is quickly lost when weighed against the ‘rebuild’ that makes them useless as a dungeon crawler and instead just gives them extra range on dots so they can be a zone lagging griefer with even less actual skill. My personal take on the July patch is that it should have been subtitled the ‘u mad bro’ patch, because all it did was enable griefing, something completely counter to the general sense of community I’ve found in every other aspect of the server.
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ToV - it’s really discouraging to farm ToV on a non-plate class and end up heirlooming full sets of plate to alts before you see even the second piece drop for your main.The ToV drop-rate and heirloom system send the very clear signal - main a plate class unless you want to raid naked.
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Tiers - It’s confusing to be soloing or small grouping stuff that should be completely doable, then find out that, no you can’t farm that, because what should be an easy kill was turned into a tier mob. Note - this could potentially be mitigated by documenting the tiers on the website. I was happily soloing my cleric through ToFS pre-60 and had no clue there was a Tier mob on the seventh floor because pre-60 you can’t get the T1 quest and see the list. So there’s really no way to know whether your trek across Norrath is going to land you in the camp you’re expecting or end up with you zoning out because a traditional solo/group encounter has been pumped up with tier steroids.
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Illusions - why can’t I farm illusion masks on my rogue?
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Poisons - why can’t I make poisons on my rogue?
TLDR; - I like the server, I like the people, monk talents need a lot of love, mage isn’t even a mage, I don’t like the ‘u mad bro’ July patch, all it accomplished was me getting griefed for the first time ever on the server, rogue talents could use a couple tweaks, poison vendors should sell me stuff.
This is all just my perspective. I’m not tagging anyone on it, feel free to ignore it, I do not expect anything to change as a result of me typing this - my only goal is to give feedback because the server is in testing and pointing out what I see working (and not working) is part of testing to my mind.