So long, and thanks for all the fish

[bishbash]

I've tried coming back to THF, but its not working for me, so before I go here's some feedback about your server (Remember ANY feedback is good feedback, even negative feedback)

I started on this server and wanted to progress in my own pace, experiencing all the content. I thoroughly enjoyed my time here for the most part, with the pace of play perfectly suited to somebody who wants to 'log in and kill' things without the boredom of downtime. Quick experience, fun zones and a definite sense of getting somewhere when progressing through the tiers. This took a long time for me as I enjoyed crawling through TOV, keying up for sleepers etc etc. I enjoyed this as at no point did I feel that the time invested was not rewarding. As each tier crept up in difficulty, it was still fun, exciting and made me want more. Generally how a game should be, enjoyable.

The epic quests (1.5 & 2.0/2.5) all seemed do-able. Mobs being camped/down the only general issue when trying to complete them, but generally the time invested being rewarded. The same with most quests, fairly enjoyable, even the tradeskill requirements all made sense and it felt good to achieve quests and made me come back for more.

DSK (T7) was the most fun, really had to make you think, and make sure that all toons had gear/aa appropriate for the level. I spent months in there, and kept going back for more.

I never got to play around in T8 much, but I did have fun trying to complete the entry task (reaper of mortality). Very difficult but enjoyable. I am not interested in being uber, so it suited me to go at my own pace and stick to what I enjoyed.

Recently it seems that everything new is designed to be a time-sink that proves nothing but patience. While I agree that some aspects of it are needed (or the game becomes too easy/trivial) I do think that THF is becoming more like live/P1999 rather than the server it used to be (Fun). I have no problems with the game requiring me to camp mob X for rare drop Y (Think Griegs end. I will never see that darn illusion ring - but I still go back every now & again to try and fail) but recently it seems everything is making this harder. Adjustments are made for the good of the server, but it's taking the toll on the fun factor.

Examples of this are the Cleric Epic 3.0 quest. 9 Hours in Butchers, over 400 mobs killed, all of which my rogue bot can solo without me having to do anything. I saw 7 drops in total, 3 of which had been unique. Crystal caverns, orcs that prove no challenge (why put them in green zones? Nothing to do but kill 1 mob is torture) and drop rate is similar (8 drops, 3 unique drops only). I make this a 2% drop rate in a zone that has nothing but 4-6 static mobs. Please consider reviewing drop rates for the sake of peoples sanity.

Shadowhaven is a fun zone, fast respawns and generally fun. The kill quest is insane. I hit it hard last week, roughly 8 days spent in there, killing 8+ hours a day to maximize the fordel aug. I had 24 toons complete the automon quest before I was half-way through upgrading the aug. After a stupid amount of time I felt rewarded that the aug was completed, and at least I had some fun doing it because of the fast respawn rate. Even better most of it was in work so I got paid to play. But I do feel the quest could be halved without making it too easy.

Character balancing currently seems way off. Wizards got hit, mage/necro got hit. Weapon procs got hit. Ranger's bows got hit. While some of these make the game more stable, currently some classes are pointless playing (enchanter comes to mind). Wizards are relegated to the mid-way dps point, with mage/necro now joining them. It would be nice if there was some clarification on where they expect certain classes to fit in the DPS table. (i.e. my fresh 1 week old BST out-damages my T7 geared wizards for the most part)

Speaking to people who have left THF they all seem to generate the same response. "It got to be a chore to play".

I feel sad that I no longer feel I can call THF my home, but I have enjoyed my stay (Been here since July 2010!) and I am sure I will pop back from time to time to see who is online (and not AFK in the bazaar as it seems now).

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, I loved my time here, but I feel that the server is moving farther away from what I am looking for, and more towards the EQ of old.



Thanks for all the fun
No other server kept me for this long, you must have something right!




Farcical


(Formerly Bishbash but Micah insisted Bish was a swear word in some culture of the world that has still yet to have internet or running water - shame I was lvl 70 with 4 donor items and been playing for 6 months before this happened but people still call me bish)

[mystickitty]

Catch ya laters Facical! <3

[Firenze]

Sorry to see you go bishboushbash

but , as I said before , you must be guilded to enjoy 100% of this server. and trust me T8 and T9 that you didn't try yet are a blast

[Ydiss]

Sorry to see you go bishboushbash

but , as I said before , you must be guilded to enjoy 100% of this server. and trust me T8 and T9 that you didn't try yet are a blast

To be fair, from what he said, it wasn't that aspect that left the most negative impact, rather it was the increased reliance on extreme time sinks to replicate difficulty. I spoke to farcical last night when I took over the kormrif camp from him and I could tell it had frustrated him. I've had moderate luck with some of rhe cleric epic camps so far but it's become evident that some camps will take a huge amount of patience and there are a lot of them to get through, even if you're able to do the raid route.

It goes without saying that the epic 3.0 needs to be the most challenging of the quests in the line so I've accepted this; that said, the excessively low drop rate just reminds me of playing Everquest live in 1999. I quit Everquest because it was mind-numbing dull. I am not entirely sure I'm going to be able to motivate myself to complete the 3.0 on multiple characters. It's about 5 camps, if you do the raid route. And the camps are static pop-watching, for several hours at a time. It's similar to live and dissimilar to how most THF content has been, to date (as Farcical suggests).

It's nice that there is a solo option for those willing to put in the time. However, a significant portion of the solo route is shared with the raid route. Significant enough that even waiting to be able to raid won't save that much in terms of mind-numbing, static camps.

The quest lore and structure are sound and a lot of work has gone into it, but I agree with Farcical when he says the design is getting a bit too close to Evercamp. It's just not as fun to do as most content so far. There are lots of time sinks in THF, but most of them involve zone progression, clearing whole zone and so on. Even the headhunter quests, both of which require an enormous amount of time and patience, feel proportionate and fun in comparison to the cleric epic.

I'll do the quests because the reward is exceptional. But I do find myself, after killing the same velium orc for 50+ times to get the final velium drop, that this was my justification when I insisted on playing Everquest live for 2 years. Eventually, I just got burned out and quit.

THF is nothing like that. But doing this quest has brought back bad memories of what playing live was like.

I'd recommend making the quests more progressive, rather than static. Keep its epic length, but make the drops more frequent and challenging to obtain. I'm not fused if it can be done solo but if that is a.requirement, then keep it in place but increase the drop rate a touch so we aren't sat in one place, killing extremely easy mobs for 5-8 hours a camp. I don't want it to be easy and I could opt to wait until we can do the raids, but that still leaves multiple very long duration and tedious camps to complete.

The other epic quests were a lot more fun (and challenging, by definition of being fun), needing to gear up and beat boss mobs, or send time doing content (ie whole zones) to get rare drops. This is just my feedback, not a complaint.

[Ydiss]

I wanted to add that I'm reluctant to give any negative feedback when it's clear a ton of work has gone into these quests. The detail and scripting has been done wonderfully and the quality of and thought in the quest story is the best I've seen here, no disrespect to previous writers.

I just prefer group and raid challenges, rather than extremely long camps for ultra rare loot on static, non-challenging targets. And a significant portion of the quest is the latter.

[Vaion]

For those who are suggesting an increase in drop rate/spawn rate, please keep in mind that the current %'s are not the final values. Everything is tuned about 150% lower than the anticipated final %'s will be due to the fact that only 2 quests are live. As more quests go live the %'s will increase. The intent right now is to prevent 500+ epics from flooding the server right away (currently only 13 cleric and 2 Shaman) As more items/npcs become available, the quests will become less of a /Afk and wait game.

Trust in us as we trust in you all

[Vaion]

Plus, there is some nice wizard luvin coming with the next patch

[bishbash]

Ydiss said it better than me.

I don't want to take anything away from the work put into the server, it's just not what I am looking for. Sure I could skip the content/quests that I don't like, but I liked following progression. Never left T7 because I was having such a blast in there and wasn't ready to move along to T8. I was in a guild with Loly, we had fun but he has also moved onto more fun things.

I don't want to be too critical, because the sheer amount of content is awesome, and like I have said before I have enjoyed myself for the most part during my adventuring here, but when the game turns to classic everquest I switch off and look elsewhere like a lot of people.

For any new players on the server, please don't skip content. Spend your time going through the raid tiers, you'll love it. It's only when you start getting close to end-game that the classic everquest elements start creeping back in with time-sinks that reward the players that can sit on a mob spawn for xx hours until your 2% comes in. But take your time and enjoy the content and that time will be a long time away.



Farcical

[Ydiss]

For those who are suggesting an increase in drop rate/spawn rate, please keep in mind that the current %'s are not the final values. Everything is tuned about 150% lower than the anticipated final %'s will be due to the fact that only 2 quests are live. As more quests go live the %'s will increase. The intent right now is to prevent 500+ epics from flooding the server right away (currently only 13 cleric and 2 Shaman) As more items/npcs become available, the quests will become less of a /Afk and wait game.

Trust in us as we trust in you all

That makes a difference and makes sense too. Once the drop rate is higher the quest will have a better pacing and stay interesting/involving.

[ChaosSlayer]

if I get Vaion idea right - once all the quests are done - you will a lot more drops - not necessarily specifically for YOUR epic, but given sheer number of people doing them, you will have lots of items to trade. So you may get wiz epic drop, while he gets cleric epic drop and you guys just trade around, which means any drop will be useful even if its not from your epic quest.