Why I don't enjoy this game.

[Nonentity]

I HAVE PURCHASED CURRENCY IN AN ONLINE GAME

Wait - what are we talking about?

[Feydakeen]

Either you're missing the point or you don't read well.  MMOG's of diku origin just aren't all that complex.  He's stating as much and I think most here that have been playing/developing them since the MUD days would agree.  So if you're just trying to raise your postcount, please do it with some added value.

Well it depends how you would define complex.
I am a doctor anesthesiologist and have been playing PC games for eeeh what 20 years or so...

TBH no game is ever complex; certainly when you compare it to human physiology, biochemistry and the likes.
So yeah EQ2 is not complex. But compare it to any other game on the market bar maybe Civ, MoO, Galciv and some other it's as deep as any game can get, in fact it's the only game i have managed to play for more then 2 years and still get hooked. WOW? Yeah it was deep allright. Deep shit.


Oh and  for your info, I don't care about postcount amounts, so don't worry 

[Nebu]

Well it depends how you would define complex.
I am a doctor anesthesiologist and have been playing PC games for eeeh what 20 years or so...

TBH no game is ever complex; certainly when you compare it to human physiology, biochemistry and the likes.

So yeah EQ2 is not complex. But compare it to any other game on the market bar maybe Civ, MoO, Galciv and some other it's as deep as any game can get, in fact it's the only game i have managed to play for more then 2 years and still get hooked. WOW? Yeah it was deep allright. Deep shit.

Few here are fanatical about WoW, so save your bile.  Also lose the signature file.  They're a waste of bandwidth and not appreciated here. 

On a separate note; I'm guessing that you're either not a native English speaker or a premed.  Noone that is a physician would ever call themselves a "doctor anesthesiologist".  Besides, that doesn't make your opinion any more valid around here.  It only means that you stayed in school too long. 

[Feydakeen]

You can never stay too long in school, that's where you are wrong.
And where exactly in my post did I say that my ideas are more valid then others???
And thirdly sorry I'm an MD Anaesthetist... is that better, and yes i'm not a native English speaking person, I speak Dutch, French and German.

[Nebu]

And where exactly in my post did I say that my ideas are more valid then others???

It was implied in the fact that you even brought it up at all.  Like "I'm an MD so I know what complex is."  Who cares if you're an MD.  There's no reason to bring it up unless the topic is relevant.  This is a gaming forum. 

FWIW I do respect the fact that you're multilingual though. 

[Rasix]

You can never stay too long in school, that's where you are wrong.
And where exactly in my post did I say that my ideas are more valid then others???
And thirdly sorry I'm an MD Anaesthetist... is that better, and yes i'm not a native English speaking person, I speak Dutch, French and German.

Get rid of the sig pic. 

[Signe]

Aha!  Does this mean I can have a sig pic?  Wait.  It was my sig pic that made sig pics not allowed, wasn't it?  Well, if you say yes, I want this one:



I'm jealous of all the doctors around here.

[Furiously]

So much for Paladin pride.

[Sky]

Hay guyz I got sig 2

[Feydakeen]

It was implied in the fact that you even brought it up at all.  Like "I'm an MD so I know what complex is."  Who cares if you're an MD.  There's no reason to bring it up unless the topic is relevant.  This is a gaming forum. 
 

No that's where you are wrong, I brought it up to compare complexity, human physiology and complexity of gaming.
It was NOT implied to say I am better or more clever. In fact most doctors I know are total @"#  :-D

[Nonentity]

Aha!  Does this mean I can have a sig pic?  Wait.  It was my sig pic that made sig pics not allowed, wasn't it?  Well, if you say yes, I want this one:



I'm jealous of all the doctors around here.

NO, DON'T DO THAT

[Signe]

[cmlancas]

And now back to your regularly scheduled charts.

[Furiously]

Aha!  Does this mean I can have a sig pic?  Wait.  It was my sig pic that made sig pics not allowed, wasn't it?  Well, if you say yes, I want this one:



I'm jealous of all the doctors around here.

NO, DON'T DO THAT

THATS THE SHIRT I WANT!!!!

[cmlancas]

Why don't we just snip all the interesting t-shirts we could make from f13 and post them all in one thread. Not the sticky one in GD because it is too muddled up with stuffs already, but a true, "post an f13 shirt idea here thread" with a picture and a short description. In fact, I think I'm going to start one now :)

[shiznitz]

Oh, you have no idea how I maximized my dps.  I'm one of those people that has to do everything perfectly.  I don't half ass things.  I like to be that guy on top of the damage meters because I am obsessive over doing the little things that no one else in their right mind does.  I'm the guy that's crazy enough to actually do fucking math and enjoy the process.

And to maximize your dps, I basically pressed

1,5,4,=,3,7,8,6,2,9,-,0

over and over again.  I didn't even have to look at the screen.  I just stared at my refreshing hotkeys.  God I owned. 

Oh, and EQ2 is one of the easiest games I've ever played.

Why wouldn't you arrange your hotkeys so you could just hit 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,-,=?   

There are definitely CAs/spells that shouldn't be used in some situations and should always be used in others to maximize dps, so in that sense I agree with the new guy. But figuring this out isn't that hard - especially for a non-newbie MMOGer - so on that sense I agree with trias.

For example, a tank that uses an AE attack against a single mob encounter is an idiot since AE attacks have longer cast timers and higher power cost than single target CAs. That should be so obvious, but yet some players just spam their keys. That is sort of the baseline understanding of the game. At the other end of the spectrum you have players that watch their combat spam very closely and try to fit CAs in between the auto-attacks. I understand that I will get more dps if I do this, but I don't do this on every mob I fight in the game. It would make the game tedious as hell. That's not to say I spam all my CAs back to back even when I want to be lazy, but there are plenty of times I never even look at the combat spam in the chat window.

[Glazius]

You can hit and mash every combat art you have and "feel" they are useless etc... but if you would take a minute to examine just what it does and try to THINK (not that most of whom diss  EQ2 look like they can think) you would see that adapting the sequence can make a huge difference. My Paladin can do 1,5 K DPS when done right, most useless players who just want 4-5 bright shiny spells and don't want a deep focused game will be lucky to get 500 K DPS while pushing just buttons.

So useless players are doing 300 times as much damage as you? Wow, that's pretty useless.

Yes, yes, I think I know what you actually meant there, and I'm going to call you on it.

Post your computer genius man skillchain, and what you imagine the HURR PRETTY COLORS skillchain is.

We'll go from there.

[Murgos]

If you have plenty of power then why not use the AoE on a single target in between refreshes of single target attacks?

If there is nothing else filling that space and power is not a concern then it's extra DPS.

The only real strategy is putting your debuffs on before hitting the big damager(s) but only IF Fight time with Debuff time < Fight time without Debuff time.

For mobs below a certain threshold it's not worth debuffing them first, the act of debuffing may actually be longer time wise than just hitting em with a few big punches.  For mobs above a certain point you may not even be able to hit them constantly until they are debuffed.

[shiznitz]

If you have plenty of power then why not use the AoE on a single target in between refreshes of single target attacks?

Unless you have a really slow 2-hander, you will lose at least one auto-attack cycle. The AEs I have are 2-3 secs of cast time. My auto attack unhasted is 1.5 secs.

[Nonentity]

Oh, come on. I know you have all these saved somewhere, and you giggle over them and rub your hands together in glee.

[Bandit]

Like I have said before, I like the nuances of having a shit-tonne (metric shit-tonne) of skills at my disposal.   I learned  how my "useless" debuffs could be employed effectively, how to maximize my combat chains, what mob type had certain weaknesses, how to work better with other classes.  I felt like I was actually gettting better and "skill" was being used.  The game was about subtle nuances to me, when combined effectively, you could really blast out solid and effective DPS...even on a troubador.

Admittedly, I also felt like some of the skills and combat arts could be combined.....and it seems that they are moving that way with Kunark expansion, I just hope they don't go overboard.

I think we just keep arguing semantics on this topic though.  It does come down to preference - one is not better for all.  Many people hate the "button-mashing" because they have been engrossed with WoW for a long time, from the other point of view, I played mostly EQ2 so I found WoW combat strange and alienating a bit. I did not like global cooldowns at first.  Now I am playing LOTRO quite a bit and found their combat horrible at first, but getting used to it more and more - but I still wish I had a plethora of useless skills at my disposal.  I get more enjoyment out of choosing from a large arsenal of abilities.

[shiznitz]

Speaking of maximizing DPS, there is a x2 raid encounter (Bonesnapper in Fallen Dynasty) that penalizes the raid for exceeding 5k DPS by spawning adds (I have no idea how someone figured out the threshold.)  At the same time, the mob pulses an AE that saps HP and power, more HP the closer you are to the mob and more power the farther you are from the mob. So you have to keep your dps down and outlast the power drain. The first time we ran out of power. The second time we exceeded the 5k DPS, got adds which meant we once again ran out of power. Third time was a charm.

[UD_Delt]

The thing with EQ2 is that sure you have a ton of skills but only about 25% of those are going to be useful during a typical solo fight so you can pretty much ignore the rest.

Another 30-40% will come into play when grouping, 25% or so are just utility (run speed, regen, calls etc...) and the remaining 10% or so are really only useful in raiding or very specific situations.

So average joe soloer is going to see a minimum of 40-50% useless skills on his character. Sure maybe my Swashbuckler can debuff a mobs magic resistance or wisdom but there's really no reason to do so unless I'm grouped with a caster.

[Bandit]

Speaking of maximizing DPS, there is a x2 raid encounter (Bonesnapper in Fallen Dynasty) that penalizes the raid for exceeding 5k DPS by spawning adds (I have no idea how someone figured out the threshold.)  At the same time, the mob pulses an AE that saps HP and power, more HP the closer you are to the mob and more power the farther you are from the mob. So you have to keep your dps down and outlast the power drain. The first time we ran out of power. The second time we exceeded the 5k DPS, got adds which meant we once again ran out of power. Third time was a charm.

Bonesnapper is a great encounter....one of the few raid mobs I got to actually use my troub's master elemental chorus (cold mit+).  Probably the last raid I was in before I took a break from EQ2, not that was huge raider or anything. 

The Corsolander in Labs is another mob I can think of that maximizing DPS ony wiped the raid (massive damage shield, tank could only taunt, no melee to hold aggro).

l

The thing with EQ2 is that sure you have a ton of skills but only about 25% of those are going to be useful during a typical solo fight so you can pretty much ignore the rest.

Another 30-40% will come into play when grouping, 25% or so are just utility (run speed, regen, calls etc...) and the remaining 10% or so are really only useful in raiding or very specific situations.

So average joe soloer is going to see a minimum of 40-50% useless skills on his character. Sure maybe my Swashbuckler can debuff a mobs magic resistance or wisdom but there's really no reason to do so unless I'm grouped with a caster.

Agreed.  Wouldn't argue that.  Is it a problem though?

EDIT - responded too quickly, I do see your point to a degree Delt.  To many useless skills for soloplay? I guess if you primarily solo, then I would have to agree. You could remove them from your hotbar, and setup a group hotkey bars.  I just don't see a problem adding group or raid skills as well, in addition to your primary skills.

[Sky]

As the resident solo spokesknight (SK, geddit?), it's not a big deal. I throw the group-specific stuff on the end of my buff hotbar (hotbar 4, not visible normally) and forget about them. There're maybe four total. Maybe I'm unique in that I cast spells and melee, so I use my debuffs pretty extensively, but it's usually when I'm stacking dots as high as possible, a very rare occurance. But I like having the extra few abilities I don't normally use, in case things get hot.

Mostly I use a handful of abilities regularly, but I'm a very conservative player. Coil, Pact, HO starter, Taunt/DoT (for HO ender), Siphon Str, Summon dumbfire skel, Kick, Bash, ok maybe I use a decent amount regularly. If things get hot there are another four or five; then there are my three AoE I use extensively in encounters. And of course Feign and Harm Touch, which I rarely use but are my bread and butter when needed.

Second step of Bloodline Chronicle, a named summoner in the middle of two other summoners + adds. Then there were the ton of wanderers. She was only a blue (-1lvl) v mob, but with all the adds...I somehow bow pulled her without any of the wanderers (who were all even con), then HT her for 2950, instakill. I was all wtfquestupdate, had to chuckle. I'm finally starting to feel a bit powerful, taking on some even-con ^^heroics and once even a low blue ^^^heroic. Somehow lived to finish the fight against the damned epic elephant horde Oly pulled the other night, wiped most of us. Oly's nuts btw. I'm rambling now, time to go home!

[Nerf]

Oh, you have no idea how I maximized my dps.  I'm one of those people that has to do everything perfectly.  I don't half ass things.  I like to be that guy on top of the damage meters because I am obsessive over doing the little things that no one else in their right mind does.  I'm the guy that's crazy enough to actually do fucking math and enjoy the process.

And to maximize your dps, I basically pressed

1,5,4,=,3,7,8,6,2,9,-,0

over and over again.  I didn't even have to look at the screen.  I just stared at my refreshing hotkeys.  God I owned. 

Oh, and EQ2 is one of the easiest games I've ever played.

Why wouldn't you arrange your hotkeys so you could just hit 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,-,=?   

It's not about fluidity, it's about repeating the same fucking thing over and over until you dream about it.
For example, the MUD I used to play oh..8 years ago, a pure pvp mud, gathering of resources to buy heals and then fight. To clear my favorite area (blackthorn) it was, eeeennegwwwwsgneeeennnnwwwsgdgsgngeengsgsgneegngugssgnnwwwwwwwssgnwgeegwnnnwgennwwwugdeeesseeeeeennegwwwsgnngswgsgnwugeegsgnnngdgeeegnnnngwwwwgssssgeeegugdssssssse buy 4 all

Macros are for fags.

[Signe]

So they just un-moderated the EQ2 chat channel so people can actually chat again.  Boy, was that ever a mistake!  It's NEARLY as fascinating as the old Horizons chat channel was.  They definitely need an Schild-like tormentor, though. 

[schild]

My trolling is limited to Zombie Survival games right now.

[Signe]

Well, they closed it up again that same day.  The one poor girl in charge couldn't even handle the amateur trolls in there.  God only knows what you would done to the poor thing.

[shiznitz]

It has now been a month since my guild began raiding twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays. The raids are not mandatory so I guess that still makes us casual. We do not use DKP, just /ran 1000 if it's an upgrade but you can only win one Fabled piece until everyone who can use the item has won something. Wednesdays are for short raids like Gorenaire, Talendor and Harla Dar. Saturdays are for Labs and Deathtoll, the final KoS raid zone. Labs and DT are also required to finish Claymore and we still have people working on those.

Why am I posting this? I never thought I would ever get to this "stage" of an MMOG. I can only play 2-3 times a week so these raids are almost 100% of my gaming time and I find it a lot of fun. Most of that is because my guild keeps succeeding even though we haven't followed the traditional raid chronology and we do not have the "perfect" raid force. We are often filling 4-6 spots with pickups. Raiding in EQ2 is just not the chore it was in EQ1 at all and even being 1 of 24 people, I get upgrades often enough to keep me interested. As far as I can tell from the loot database websites, my helm (from Deathtoll) and legs (from Labs) are the best I can get before the Fabled class set pieces that drop in EoF raid zones (as compared to the Legendary set peieces that drop in the group instances.)

We try Freethinkers Hideout (the first EoF raid zone) this month for the first time so we will see whether skipping some of the KoS stuff is practical.

[Sky]

Sounds cool. My only trepidation about raiding is the time it takes up and the people generally drawn to that playstyle. I'd join you guys as a pickup member if I wasn't only level 42 :)

I got my second and third exquisite chests evar (solo) on Sunday. If SK's feign was on the same timer as brawler's, I'd say it was the perfect class. That's really been my only gripe up to 42, and that's only for tackling heroic content solo.

[shiznitz]

Nice on the Exquisites. I have only ever seen those in the group or raid instances.

[Sky]

My first one was a couple months ago, off the triggered named spawn in Nektulos, which is now a 27^ after the revamp. Hmm...I wonder if all those old heroic nameds still have their old loot tables or if they just missed him because he's a triggered spawn? I killed him four times over a couple days (the people who triggered him didn't know or couldn't handle him) and got: exquisite, small, small, treasure.

Sunday, one was from a wandering golem and the other from the named book, both in RoV. Trying to pharm Chorulle-style. Did ok, but there are a couple nasty linked rooms.

[Chorulle]

My name is becoming associated with unsavory acts.  I do not farm per se, I just help good items reach the hands of those who need them the most..for the right price of course.

[UD_Delt]

Sounds cool. My only trepidation about raiding is the time it takes up and the people generally drawn to that playstyle. I'd join you guys as a pickup member if I wasn't only level 42 :)

I got my second and third exquisite chests evar (solo) on Sunday. If SK's feign was on the same timer as brawler's, I'd say it was the perfect class. That's really been my only gripe up to 42, and that's only for tackling heroic content solo.

At 42 I think you are just about the right level to start solo farming the chamber of immortality in Varsoon. I think the mobs are all low to mid 30's. Thats a guaranteed exquisite chest once per day.