EQ2 2-17 patch

Is anyone else just as peeved off as myself and EVERYONE I know about how soe changed the game to everCRAFT/GUESS/HARVEST with the 2-17 patch the day AFTER about 50% of their player base got charged for the next month?

I started playing it the day it went live with my gaming group of 6 friends. We have watched the slow painful deteroration of the game with every patch/update released. As of last night only 1 person still has an account and that is becuase he is working out at sea for 2 weeks and has not been on the game.

I know personally I played the game to QUEST. Hence the name everQUEST on the box. I did not want to pretend to make shirts and tennis bracelets in a lil room all day. If I had wanted to do that I would have picked up a Betty Crocker RPG or maybe some Home Depot rpg.

Changing the whole encounter system and mob identification was a real brainiac move too.

If you have contnued to play please let me know what long term effects are happening in the game.

If you have quit also list why you did so.

No one has a comment on the most controversial patch to date?

I quit because once I hit lvl 23 it was like hitting a glass ceiling, it took FOREVER to get past. So I quit and went to WoW which I like MUCH better due to the faster pace of the game and it's easier to walk away from. I also quit due to the awful performance of the game. I has to have a memory leak or something, I would play for 2hrs then have to reboot.
But that's just me.

I just hit lvl 37 Wizard last night, and my sister hit 36 Wizard over the weekend. I have to say that aside from the problem with having to attune all our armor and accessories, the patch has been fabulous. I dont know how much questing my sister does on her toon, but I can tell you that I do a TON of questing. I havent even started tradeskilling.

Over the weekend I finished 3 REALLY big Heritage quests. The Stein of Moggok: It can be Rebuilt, The Sewn Bag of Evil Eyes, and The Serrated Bone Dirk. All of them were FABULOUS quests.

I do quest after quest after quest, and you know what? I STILL have 48 active quests in my journal, and i'm picking them up faster than I can finish them.

Now... as for SOE apparently changing the name of the game to EverCRAFT or some such thing in your opinion, I cant understand where that is coming from. Nothing in the game has changed for me in the patch except my DPS has skyrocketed as it damn well should have and the attunement thing sucks but I can get past it. If you have issues with crafting... dont craft. Lol.

I have 1 platinum 70 gold in my bank at lvl 37. I dont need to craft in order to make money. I do quests and sell off the goods I dont need in merchant mode during the night while I sleep. And now that I have access to the Feerrott, I can sell almost everything I loot there for a gold or more to NPC merchants alone.

Tonight I should be going to Cazik Thule Temple with a group of guildmates to try to pick up the Lizardman Lore and Legends (Lizardman Mastery) book.

I'm not sure of the troubles you are having because I cant tell if you're a crafter or an adventurer, but if you're an adventurer not much has changed at all unless you are a Wizard or Warlock who had their DPS bumped up about 10 notches to make up for our lack of armor rating.

What exactly are you peeved about? I'm not really understanding.

A lot of things.
Attuning quick fix for the economy. They took the easy way out that DRASTICALY changes the whole game and the way you play it with others.
Changing of the encounter system so that the lowest level now determines agro.
Changing the way you identify mobs. What the hell was wrong with the great, simple system they had in place? Why have to learn a new and complicated system?
The advertising creepinging into the game. Yes I know you are not forced to use it but the principle behind the intoduction of adds ingame is the issue.
Add these changes to the overall poor performance of the game that most have come to live with such as rebooting every 2 hours due to the memory leak and soe rebooting servers every morning due to their poor programing.
The paying players have become the real beta testers as eq2 was NOT a finished game when released and still is not.

I have a 29 Gaurdian, and I have seen a large exodus of players lately. Largely because of the nerfs they keep dropping on the fighter/scout classes. Alot of people are upset at the fact that you now have to attune everything further complicating the matter of making money (wich was already a pain in the butt to make) adventure only chars are now dirt poor (some servers have better economies than others). Wizards/Warlocks got a tremendous boost to dps with the last patch. I am on the verge of quitting myself for a few reasons. They are 1)Tremendous grind, everything in the game seems to be a huge grind with no real rewards. 2)Large camping issues, mainly quest mobs and raid mobs that force you to camp 2+ hours to get. 3)The petty wars between gaurdians and the paladins, I get mighty sick of paladins claiming to be better tanks than gaurdians and childishly taunting me and than loosing aggro all the time. 4)The lack of quality players, more and more recently I see alot of idiots roaming my server and noone wants to help anyone anymore. 5)The lack of monster AI 6)The cookie cutter armors that make us all look the same. I'm gonna hold it out one more billing cycle to see if things improve, but atm the only reason I'm staying is because I lead my own guild and dont wanna let the guys down.

I havn't even touched the game in 1.5 months, actually trying to sell my Lvl 31 Guard off for the past Month with no success . Oh well.

All the people buying lvl 25+ characters on ebay is a MASSIVE turnoff. You group with what you think is an experienced player and it turns out to be a noob who bought an account a week ago and gets a group wiped before you realize it.
You really should not break the eula and sell your character even if just for that purpose. Think of the people who will get to group with a lvl 31 noob!

Actually, you can't sell them on Ebay. Sony pulls them within nearly 24 hours.

Well if it was a n00b so what, people do have to learn, and anyways the guild I was in was willing to help the person out knowing that he could of been a n00b. Its not like im making money off selling the account anyways.

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A lot of things.
Attuning quick fix for the economy. They took the easy way out that DRASTICALY changes the whole game and the way you play it with others..

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This I agree with. It is not a good fix for the populace. I have two toons that were swapping equipment hand-me-down style, and now I cannot do that anymore. Kind of irks me. I guess SOE was trying to make it so that crafters get more business, but really, who would where a crafted piece of junk robe over a much better robe that I can get through questing?

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Changing of the encounter system so that the lowest level now determines agro.

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Get real. This is to prevent low level people from just grouping with a higher lvl person to get somewhere that they should not be. This was a needed change. There is absolutely no reason that a lvl 6 scout should be seen within the Ruins of Varsoon, because I've seen it. Its retarded. A lvl 6 scout sitting in the room that spawn The Creator is just not right. They should be nowhere near varsoons, let alone the Thundering Steppes, or even Antonica.

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Changing the way you identify mobs. What the hell was wrong with the great, simple system they had in place? Why have to learn a new and complicated system?

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Change it back in the game options. Simple as that. The old settings are still there for people who dont like the new system.

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The advertising creepinging into the game. Yes I know you are not forced to use it but the principle behind the intoduction of adds ingame is the issue.

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I'll agree to that, although i'll be the first to say that I HAVE used the /pizza command already. Only thing with that is that I was using Pizza Huts website to order already since I get a speedier response that way than over the phone.

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Add these changes to the overall poor performance of the game that most have come to live with such as rebooting every 2 hours due to the memory leak and soe rebooting servers every morning due to their poor programing. The paying players have become the real beta testers as eq2 was NOT a finished game when released and still is not.

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Not sure what you need to be restarting all the time for. I'm running the game at 1600x1200 High Quality, and never have any issues until I get into multi group Raid parties. No lag. But then I have no clue what these memory leaks are that you're talking about needing to reset to take care of.

12am said:

I have a 29 Gaurdian, and I have seen a large exodus of players lately. Largely because of the nerfs they keep dropping on the fighter/scout classes.

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Yeah, the Scouts took a bigger hit though in the last 2 patches. Fighter classes had their defense mitigation improved while their damage was cut back. That equals out. Fighters were not meant to be huge damage dealers anyway. They are tanks. Scouts however I feel are getting shafted. With the change to strength in association to damage output that was supposed to be changed for fighters, scouts got hit as well.

The money issue you talk about is nil once your get to a certain lvl. You cant expect a sole adventurer to be reaping loads of platinum only at the lvl of 29. Payouts for loot are not that high at your lvl. If you go to Runnyeye Citadel and get a group you'll get some good loot and money however. Get in there and kill goblins, minotaurs, and eyes. I went there last night to finish up some quests, and ended up selling 8 gold worth of loots on a freeport NPC merchant when I logged for sleep.

Feerrott is an even better place for money making. Coin scales to the lands that you travel as you most likely know. Once you lvl up, you'll get more coin. This is to prevent ppl like lvl 10 warriors from riding around on 2 platinum Halasian Draft Horses. There's no need for that.

12am said:

1)Tremendous grind, everything in the game seems to be a huge grind with no real rewards.

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Questing reaps some fantastic rewards, and I can attest to that. Just to name a few that I've completed:

The Sewn Bag of Evil Eyes
The Greater Lightstone
The Glowing Black Rock
The Shiny Brass Halberd
The Stein of Moggok
The Staff of Kyrtoxx
Neeklub's Robe of Efficiency
The Ebon Eye Robe
The Gnomish Elemental Suit
The Fishbone Earring
The Cap of Discord
The Serrated Bone Dirk
The Legendary Journeyman Boots
The Ring of the House of Everling

The list goes on and on. The benefits from quests are fantastic, and if you put a goal to what you're doing instead of grinding exp, then you'll have a better time. I can tell you right now that I never grind exp. I group for quests with my guild and get exp along the way from kills and quest completion. Heritage quests are especially great for good rewards and exp along the way.

Honestly, I think that these issues are just nit picking. They are not big problems, and can be overcome easily. It all depends on how you play the game. I can tell you that getting into a guild that supports its members makes a huge difference in playability. All I have to do is log in and ask the guild if any groups are questing, and within 5 minutes I'm off and running. Not to mention I get help with obtaining all the crafted items I could use from within the guild.

I had enough with SoE with EQ1, why would I bother with EQ2 after the experiences with EQ1 is beyond me.

I loved EQ, back in the old days, before Luclin, I play WoW now and wanted EQ2 badly but im just not in the thought that EQ2 is that good of a game.

Thats what alot of people say about it unfortunately. I'm a former WoW beta tester and didnt like it myself, then found EQ2 and loved it. Unfortunately, there is a huge portion of people out there that would just rather knock either of these games even though they have never played one or the other.

At this point, I appreciate both. I think it's amazing that WoW has taken off so successfully. Blizzard gets props for that. I just couldnt get into the game though, which is why I picked up EQ2. Coming from SWG, I was was sick of all the griefing in PvP, not to mention the non exisistance of a group atmosphere. Those alone were what drove me right into EQ2. No PvP at all, and the total reliance upon grouping to get anywhere.

Salomon Orangge said:

...and the total reliance upon grouping to get anywhere.

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I do NOT want to group. I WANT to solo. Being forced to group to get ahead in a game is absolute garbage in my opinion. Add to that the people in guilds have much better access to equipment, money, items, etc, just left a bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to spend what little gaming time I had gaming. Not waiting for someone to bio every 10 minutes and hold up the action.

The changes that were made caused my whole group to leave and we are going to try WoW. My son has already started and it looks ok but I will wait and play awhile on his before I throw more money away like I did on eq2.

More power to you if the game is still to your liking. You seem to be in the miniority but at least you are playing a game you like and we are forced yet again to find something else. Just think, maybe with the huge loss of players they have had maybe the will increase rares or finally add some worthwhile content to the game other than trying to make you to pretend to make jum jum cakes in a basement!

thats cool if you dont want to group, people like different things. I do like grouping, it makes it much more exciting(im comming from FFXI though, so its the same idea). maybe reading up on the game before you bought it would have helped you. I knew before i bought both FFXI and EQII that group was a must.

I really didn't mind grouping when playing EQ2. There was some things that could be done solo which was fun enough to keep me occupied when groups where in a shortage. But neveer th less grouping with EQ2 is essensial, and if you can get into a guild it just makes it that much easier to do.

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I do NOT want to group. I WANT to solo. Being forced to group to get ahead in a game is absolute garbage in my opinion. Add to that the people in guilds have much better access to equipment, money, items, etc, just left a bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to spend what little gaming time I had gaming. Not waiting for someone to bio every 10 minutes and hold up the action.

The changes that were made caused my whole group to leave and we are going to try WoW. My son has already started and it looks ok but I will wait and play awhile on his before I throw more money away like I did on eq2.

More power to you if the game is still to your liking. You seem to be in the miniority but at least you are playing a game you like and we are forced yet again to find something else. Just think, maybe with the huge loss of players they have had maybe the will increase rares or finally add some worthwhile content to the game other than trying to make you to pretend to make jum jum cakes in a basement!

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If you dont want to group, EQ2 was never the game for you. This is not a soloist's game. WoW or SWG are around for soloing. SWG is a TOTAL solo game right now, and I came from there sick to my stomach because no one EVER wanted to do anything together. Not to mention everyone in the game has a GOD mentality at the moment because everything in the game besides the Deathwatch bunker or Corellian Corvette can be solo'd by someone who spends a day leveling their toon to master swordsman.

Grouping is a part of the game, and I find it hard to believe that you hadnt heard about this in EQ2 before you started. That was one of the sole reasons I began this game. The group content, and just about ONLY group content. And guilds get you ahead in that. Any good player who knows what they are doing can attest to this in any MMORPG. You're hurting yourself if you think you can just take pick up groups throughout your gaming experience. Guilds are constantly doing things, and my guild Divinity is not an exception. I logged in last night and was getting /tells asking me if I would like to join a group for the Feerrott or Runnyeye Citadel.

I honestly cant figure out what everyone is complaining about from the patch. Nothing has been drastically changed besides Attunement and Wiz/Warlock damage. I still havent read about anything here that cant be overcome with just a bit of thought or logical play.

Now... are you WANTING to be a crafter? Is that why you keep mentioning going to your basement to make food and wares? Cuz it certainly sounds like you hate doing it. I hate doing it as well, so I never started. I had enough of that in SWG as a Weaponsmith to begin with, and later on an Armorsmith which I never touched, and allowed a friend to use. I'm a pure adventurist, and sitting in front of a crafting machine making crip craps is not for me. However, crafting is a good way to make money, and some of the richest people on the servers are crafters.

I think personally you just didnt get into some of the ins and outs of EQ2 that I have, and because of it dragged you down. I made sure to join a big and successful guild right off the bat, and it made my gameplay fantastic. Then there might be that you may have picked up a class that did not quite appeal to you. I dunno.

In any case, sorry you didnt like the game, and if you want to solo more, I would definitely reccommend WoW. I beta'd WoW in open, and noticed the huge potential for soloing. My sister, in fact, splits her time between EQ2 and WoW because in her words, "They are two entirely different animals."

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I do NOT want to group. I WANT to solo. Being forced to group to get ahead in a game is absolute garbage in my opinion. Add to that the people in guilds have much better access to equipment, money, items, etc, just left a bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to spend what little gaming time I had gaming. Not waiting for someone to bio every 10 minutes and hold up the action.

The changes that were made caused my whole group to leave and we are going to try WoW. My son has already started and it looks ok but I will wait and play awhile on his before I throw more money away like I did on eq2.

More power to you if the game is still to your liking. You seem to be in the miniority but at least you are playing a game you like and we are forced yet again to find something else. Just think, maybe with the huge loss of players they have had maybe the will increase rares or finally add some worthwhile content to the game other than trying to make you to pretend to make jum jum cakes in a basement!

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I'm confused, you have a core group of people you talk about playing with, but you don't play with them because you don't like groups?

Ya I think you will be happy in WoW, you can be all powerfull with very little effort and time.

We are a "gaming group". That does not mean we play in a group/clan/team in the games we play. We get together to play games and ususally all do the same game at the same time like the book clubs of old used to do with books.

I read about eq2 before it came out and did not see anything that said you would be forced to group to be able to progress forward in the game and others I have asked did not see it either. Being told you have to group or you will not progress evenly with those who do even though you are killing the same mobs and doing the same quests is something that would have prevented me from buying the game if I had known about it.

To clear up the crafting question that seems to linger with you, NO I did not want to craft. I think it is a complete waste of gaming resources. There should be a quilting and knitting mmorpg if thats what people want to do. To spend the time and money on the game to never experience the beautiful worlds in it because you are in a basement making soup and crackers is ridiculous to me. That is my opinion though and yours may differ.

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To clear up the crafting question that seems to linger with you, NO I did not want to craft. I think it is a complete waste of gaming resources. There should be a quilting and knitting mmorpg if thats what people want to do. To spend the time and money on the game to never experience the beautiful worlds in it because you are in a basement making soup and crackers is ridiculous to me. That is my opinion though and yours may differ.

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Only reason I asked is because you seemed so hung up on it. Thats part of just about every MMORPG out there, and no one is forcing you to do it. Crafting is a service to the community as a whole, and while you and I hate it downright because of its outright monotony, I do have friends who just go into these games to be a successful crafter.

There are 2 parts to this game. The adventuring side, and the crafting side. The reason they do get updates on the crafting side is because people do play it. Those are the people that make the good foods/drinks for adventurers. Same people that I bring items to which can be crafted into other better items such as spell upgrades, weapons, armor, jewelry, or activatables.

So while I dont like it, I know that I have to interact with it. There's no reason to dwell on it if you dont do it anyway, so in no way is it affecting your gameplay whatsoever. If the crafters get a nerf or powerup, you will be affected by market prices. That's the only thing about crafting that you need concern yourself with at all.

I agree with Salomon Orangge, EQ2 is for people that like to be in guilds and part of a team. IMO this is what makes this type of game fun. I played EQ1 for years in a big raiding guild and met a ton of great people from around the world that I still keep in touch with today - even though I quit EQ1 when OoW ruined it.

I bought WoW and EQ2 on the same day, tried both and prefer EQ2. I think the reason I like EQ2 is because I was so used to spending 100% of my gaming time in EQ1 and a lot of my friends got EQ2. I kind of expected WoW to be more like EQ and was quite surprised to find out it was totally different. I thought EQ2 was the best thing ever when it first came out but then I got bored. I took a break for a month and came back to all my gear needing to be attuned and being worth like 2s a piece. I admit that sucked but I didn't see much of a difference from the patch other than that. I don’t tradeskill much, only when there is something good on tv so I don't need to pay attention.

I also agree with Salomon Orangge on his comments on tradeskilling. If tradeskillers get a patch to help them out a bit and you don't tradeskill, why complain. You are not "missing out" and are at no disadvantage. The game hasn’t turned to evercraft, it just a part of it that you don’t have to participate in if you don’t like it. Tsing is boring, that’s why I make my $$ adventuring.