Any plans for solo content post 70?

[dmaker]

I love playing on this server but once I hit 70 with a toon I get in a bit of a funk with little interesting to do, or few avenues available for gear upgrades. So I just tend to farm AA in PoV or something all the time and this gets mighty boring after awhile. But the Catch-22 is that I can't move out of that cycle since I can't get better gear than chaotic without grouping. I have levelled up three toons so far: my Ranger, Pally, Warrior. As well as a few other classes in the mid range levels. I absolutely love levelling on this server. I get to play and experience class/race combos that would have taken forever in live, so this makes me very happy. But once I hit 70, I find little to do and few ways to get better gear without grouping. I have tried boxing with my little troupe plus one bot, and if I was a better boxer ( and EQ's auto follow was not the total piece of crap code that it is) , then maybe I would be able to slowly grind out some kael drops. But as it stands right now, unless I can get into quick PUGs for kael drop farming, I am stuck just puttering about gaining AA's in boring places like PoV. I don't have a lot of time for play, so joining groups is usually not a great option for me, that's kinda why I am trying to build my own and learn to box better, but you hit a hard equipment wall at level 70 that demands you get better armor to keep enjoying the custom zones, but pretty much precludes you from doing so without a group.

Any plans to add some more solo friendly ways to go beyond Chaotic armor? Or more zones at higher levels that solo players can enjoy as well?

Cheers

[Lillu]

We are open for suggestions for solo content. Unfortunately it's pretty hard to add solo zones past level 70 that actually offer armor upgrades when we already have a balanced progression path in place (soloing-> grouping -> raiding).
If grouping and raiding isn't an option for you, I would recommend you to visit ldon, since it's exactely for solo players who want (top) raid quality gear but not able to raid-group too often. Ldon can be done solo, but of course it will take a lot more time to get raid quality gear than doing raid mobs.

[Kuldiin]

Icewell gear is soloable(for the most part)

[dmaker]

Icewell gear is soloable(for the most part)

Yeah, I don't find that zone too difficult. Are there armor drops or do I need to craft something or other? I seem to remember some pattern drops or something from that zone..?

[catthib]

Reworked Muramite pieces drop, as well as the materials and fluids to make the various pieces. Sadly, you DO have to raise your tradeskills up in order to make the final combines, but if you follow some of the different guides that are posted, you should be able to do that in short order. Welcome to the farm phase, however. You will come to loathe PoValor, as you search for Air-Infused Spring Water for blacksmithing skill-ups.

Or if you dont feel like travelling that route, keep an eye out in /ooc chat for people hunting in Kael, where the finished pieces of the armor drop, and you may pick up a bit of gear that way.

[BosCo]

Dmaker,

I tell you what when you get on look me up i help you run through Kael to get some upgrade armor so that maybe you can move past PoVand do some more content.

Let me know

[Felibar]

Bosco's a helluva guy to run you through Kael. He ran me through once (and I need to pester him some more for more runs hehe) and he's fast and a quality player. You won't regret it!

[themike316]

bosc is a punk and he knows it

[Insedeel]

We are open for suggestions for solo content. Unfortunately it's pretty hard to add solo zones past level 70 that actually offer armor upgrades when we already have a balanced progression path in place (soloing-> grouping -> raiding).
If grouping and raiding isn't an option for you, I would recommend you to visit ldon, since it's exactely for solo players who want (top) raid quality gear but not able to raid-group too often. Ldon can be done solo, but of course it will take a lot more time to get raid quality gear than doing raid mobs.

Sorry was just looking through what I've typed, this post is long, but please bear with me if you would be willing Lillu. If you want to skip to the "get to the point" part of the post though, I bolded the suggestion.

Although aren't you basically cutting yourself off from ever being able to introduce new solo/group content if you don't ever want to allow solo/group content start to overlap into their respective higher tier of group/raid content? I see that you're up to raid tier 7 now, which is great and all, but at this point it really only seems that you'll only be allowing yourselves to create new raid gear from here on out do to the fact that the raid gear doesn't ever have to worry about overlapping into the next type of content since raid content is technically the "end-game" content so obviously there is no other form of content beyond raid, which means an endless sky to introduce better gear.

I think this is the biggest problem most MMOs have. You're pretty much screwed no matter what route you take. If you increase the level cap then it risks severely trivializing ALL of the content from the previous level cap. But the positive side is that the new content you make for the new level cap has an entirely new set of solo/group/raid content, and everything is fresh and new for a while for all of your players you try to cater to. In an emulated server environment this route would be bad though as we only have a limited amount of zones to work with.

If you choose never to increase the level cap to avoid the issue of trivializing all of your previous level cap content in one fell swoop, and you also don't want the solo content overlapping into group content, and group content to overlap into raid content, then you're pretty much going to cause your solo and group content to become stale overtime because of no fresh new content and nothing to look forward to after a certain amount of time, which will in the long run eventually push away all of your soloers and groupers, or just make them feel forced into trying to get into raiding which for some people it's no longer fun, and no longer a game, or others it's impossible do to being too busy etc.

Now that all being said there are options that can be considered to keep introducing new content to all of your levels of players. Have you considered possibly, when you're working on a new raid zone and raid tier converting your earliest raid tier into a tough group zone, and then taking your lowest tier group zone and converting it into a tough solo zone? I know it would be a lot of mob tweaking and everything, but it accomplishes many things. It gives groupers new yummy looking items to be able to go after, and an entirely new zone to explore, and it gives soloers the same thing. New gear, and new content to explore.

The reasons this would be a very positive way of introducing new content:

You know that your hard work you've all put into the zones will continue to be used and won't be forgotten because people will need to gear up from each previous tier to continue to get better gear.

If you balance it right, the raid zone you converted into being groupable should ONLY be able to be completed by people who have got the best previous group gear from before, and the same with the new solo zone and having the best solo gear from the last solo tier.

It will be in some ways far less work for you as devs since all you're doing is tweaking encounters, and mobs down to a level where it can be handled by 1 well group geared group, or one well solo geared soloer respectively instead of trying to decide on a new zone to try to fully revamp, think up quests, think up itemization, implement all of the ideas, etc. You already have a full tier of gear made, and full zone of content that with only a little tweaking can be used as fresh new group/solo content. Sure, some will know those zones already a little bit, but only because they did a little raiding/grouping on the side. This will only mean that they can finish up their gearing from that zone quicker, and can start seeing even more content now that the next tiers open up as the new intro raid/group tier.

Most importantly is that it gives people a chance to see the content that they had only been dreaming about being able to see. Even if it's much later than the raiding guilds saw it, people will still be happy to finally be able to see that gear and content themselves.

The biggest con to this though (at least that I can think of) is that like any change to a zone that people may have had fond memories of, or really enjoyed may not like it being changed because they remember the good ole days per say. It would still be a positive, and probably well received way of introducing new content to solo/groupers alike though.

So an Example, I know you just introduced Raid Tier 7 recently. Say you did this method with the release of raid Tier 7. I'm not sure if you have group and solo content tiered, so I'll just put guesses in there for examples sake. I'm including the Raid tier numbers with the new Group tier numbers so people will always understand that it was originally a raid tier now converted to a group tier, etc.

R7
R6
R5
R4
R3
R2
R1/G3
G2
G1/S2
S1

Then next time raid content was released it would be like below..

R8
R7
R6
R5
R4
R3
R2/G4
R1/G3
G2/S3
G1/S2
S1

So this ultimately accomplished what your goals have been where grouping gives better gear than soloing, and raiding gives better gear than grouping WHILE still introducing new content to all forms of play.

[Zolzimar]

Interesting ideas Insedeel, I like it.