I think the devs should have engaged in a fairly simple thought experiment: How likely is it that tower gear might spoil some people’s enjoyment of Teek? Pretty likely. How likely is it that the *absence* of tower gear might spoil some people’s enjoyment of Teek? Highly unlikely. Seems like a pretty straightforward decision.
I am considering coming back very soon. Possibly to Teek, even though I will be a little bit behind everyone else. More likely by January when a newer TLP launches I heard about. And this so called tower gear sounds game breaking. Half of the fun of the original game IS the struggle of getting yourself geared up, but the best part of original EQ was grouping and spending time with other people. Concepts entirely lost on many gamers now days who have no patience. They have grown up in a world of immediate gratification, and no child left behind. Some of us are masochists by modern standards, and we don't mind the actual grind. I couldn't help but laugh at people complaining about grinding for 30 minutes in WoW.... they obviously NEVER played original EQ, and I point that out and laugh at them. But it seems somebody high up is playing on the server possibly and is wanting something to try and "speed things along" regarding the original test for raiders and that is "Putting in your personal work to progress yourself for the good of the raid force." And over powering characters like this cheapens the experience.
The random/free trade servers are already eq on easy mode regardless. Being able to buy raid gear thats normally no-drop. Getting 3x raid loot when you do raid. Getting top teir raid loot from low teir raid bosses (as you will see in future xpacs) it all puts eq on easy mode. But most people i played with on mischief prefered it over a traditional server because they didnt have to suffer so much to succeed, especially with the pace of time locked progression... also bards do become pretty awsome in later xpacs with aas. In this era bards are mainly just needed for resists. In a few xpacs this will all smooth over.
You certainly have a valid point about gear stat capping people and therefore pushing bard's usefulness aside to a degree in an early expansion. I wouldn't despair about it too much though. Selos is still awesome. You can slow. Everyone knows how good bards eventually get and their songs usefulness becomes above and beyond any gear you could be wearing. They get overhaste, +spell dmg, multiple melee & spell proc songs, AA selos buff, AE mez, mana/health regen, Buffs to healers, buffs to tanks. Amazing AA buffs and their 2.0 epic click is easily top 3 epics in the game that is useful forever. Eventually AA's allow you to twist more and more songs (like 8 songs) Any DPS topping charts in later expansions has a bard in their group 100% guaranteed. When you get overhaste in velious expect all melee dps to be knocking at your door. Also, I'd rather pull with a bard than a monk any day of the week. You get basically unlimited Fading memories eventually. You just exist in a very early era with some odd circumstances and before bards get a lot of good shit. In the meantime you could just load up some chants and try to push your own DPS and wait till bard buffs really come into their own.
My creds: Started playing EQ in beta phase 3, kept playing pretty consistently til around 2005 then left for a bit to play WoW. Came back briefly several times before starting on P99 which I played regularly for a few years. Then starting with Phinigel I have dabbled on almost every TLP that has come out since then. Also did a handful of other lesser known emulated servers in between. My 2 cents is people are drastically overstating the issue of tower gear. Yes it's very good and yes it trivializes some early era raid gear. The lack of AC on it makes it not BiS for some slots for tanks already in Velious. By Luclin even more will be not BiS. Probably almost every slot for tanks. Once PoP hits it'll be filler slots here and there but most of it will be replaced if you're raiding PoTime regularly as any class. Post PoP it's pretty much irrelevant. Other commenters have also noted these random loot servers are pretty much intentionally designed to be a somewhat "ezmode" version of the game. Loot even outside of tower is significantly easier to get than regular servers and they added stuff like out of combat regen early amongst other things. The numbers speak for themselves. Teek is the most popular EQ server in history. The majority love ezmode EQ. If you ask me the MUCH bigger issue that isn't being addressed in any way from what I can tell is the issue of mass botters / ae PLers / RMTers. This issue in my view is getting worse and worse and worse every single TLP and has reached a fever pitch on Teek. There are so many people playing for the sole purpose of acquiring and RMTing krono for $10 on these secondary market websites and for many of them their rent literally depends on it. People joke about it but I know for a fact in some cases it's literally the truth. People running 8+ mage bots 24 hours a day 7 days a week monopolizing entire zones for quite literally weeks at a time. Reported prolly 100+ times a day and no action ever gets taken. I spoke to one personally who boldly claimed "Report me if you want. Daybreak can't touch me". I hoped that wasn't true when they said it but apparently it is. Hundreds maybe thousands of "missing" krono being reimbursed by daybreak staff with raw plat value thus causing the highest inflation ever seen on a TLP this fresh ever before (by like 40-60x?). All this stuff gets worse and worse every single TLP and it's reaching a point where it's kind of ruined the game for me. I think Teek might be my last TLP unless daybreak makes some changes and gets this situation under control. I'll stick to emulated servers where they somehow keep this shit in check far better with at most a handful of completely volunteer staff.
The tower gear bridges the gap between people who have time to raid and people who dont. I help take care of a family member who has severe health issues. I, at no point can commit to any specific play time nor commit to a raid if it lasts longer than 30 minutes and my grouping time varies depending on whats going on in my day. There will be times when I can get into a group for an hour or two or times when I just join a group and suddenly have to leave. I am sorry if Tower Gear damages your experience with the game but personally I was thrilled to see it because it ensures that I will have the ability to participate in content I might not be able to otherwise. In the time that I've had my tower gear I have actually been able to win or buy gear from the current expansion we are in (Velious) that is actually better than the tower gear itself. The biggest reason why this seems to be a problem for so many is because most raid and quested gear is tradable on teek. The economy inflation is out of control at this point and I see that but for someone like me who plays the game to relax, I dont pay much attention to any of that. I just play.
Bards are one of the most important classes in the raid. Every dps group wants a bard/shaman. And tanks love bards for AC song. Plus if you really want to know EQ doesn’t really start until Omens of War
i agree with you 100%. That's why I play on private servers. I would play on regular servers if it wasn't for the krono thing. I prefer playing on Lazarus so I can just relax and enjoy myself. The people are very amazing and nice. I have played enough of the original EQ to want to go through all that "challenge" again. I can play a box of my own heroes at my own pace, and not deal with any toxicity whatsoever. Sure people don't really group much on that server unless for specific things, but most everybody chats. I made plenty of friends in a week, and I don't have to suffer with daybreak.
As another main bard on Teek, I think this is wayyyyy overstating the impact of tower gear. I think tower gear definitely has had a major impact, but the issues you're concerned with aren't really among them imo. The effect is probably most pronounced in Kunark, which I guess is when you're making this video, but even now in Velious the gear has caught up substantially to the tower gear, and surpassed in some cases. AC especially is significantly better in many slots from Velious gear. Tower gear does provide more ability stats, somewhat more HP, resists (in some cases) and mana regen though but that doesn't really lessen the impact of a bard. Even without tower gear, melee are capping str easily, and probably all of their physical stats with avatar procs and sham buffs. With tower gear they just dont have to waste buff slots on shm buffs and I don't think anyone is complaining about that. And the value of bard songs is basically unchanged -- In a tank group, you are still running probably whatever resists are necessary, Niv's for AC, McVaxius for Atk/DS, maybe Psalm for DS - tower gear doesn't change your song lineup or usefulness at all. In melee dps groups the +Atk from McVaxius (along with epic proc) is basically all you are directly adding right now either way, plus resists (just as useful with or without tower gear), and potentially hp regen/rune songs. I mean the lack of impact of the ability stat components of our songs is really no different than the haste component of our songs, epic proc, and siren song/nature's melody effects being irrelevant 99.9% of the time. And in caster DPS groups, we don't have anything that *directly* aids them, though resists/regen etc are still useful. One impactful thing a bard can be doing that you didn't even mention is resist debuffs on raid targets. Occlusion of Sound, as well as chants of the appropriate type can significantly help every caster in your raid land nukes and debuffs. None of these things are lessened by tower gear. The biggest impact of tower gear is devaluing raid gear in those slots and making content easier in general by putting people at bis or near-bis in half their slots from day 1. But as we hit Luclin and then PoP the desirability of this stuff will continue to go down (even as the tower gear upgrades to the level 65 versions, as the best stuff out of Plane of Time is gonna be better.) In MY opinion, the eras where this gear make the biggest impact (Kunark and Velious) are the most boring and getting the power boost is welcome to reduce some of the tedium inherent in them. But bottom line, it doesn't lessen the usefulness of bards at all.
Oh wow. I was in Chef's Kiss for a bit. Seethy here. I really enjoyed my time with you guys. But coming from p99 and other emulated servers, daybreak's system and way they managed eq live/tlp is really pay 2 win and they don't really do anything about the botting and rampant rmt. When I got a PD robe raiding with you guys, I had tells asking to buy it from for real life cash and krono from people (not from guild). So I had to step away from the game. Atm, Im waiting for luclin to launch of Quarm, where I will probably live out my eq days. Nice seeing you, Yenneth!
There are augs for melee players which have 4atk + 1HP regen per slot on top of the resists, HP and stats you can slot in every item of the tower gear.
Is that rat illusion a Daybreak potion? I don't remember it being available in Kunark. I recognize the skin from Dragon Necropolis from Velius. One other issue regarding this tower gear, is it nullifies much of the current xpac gear. It's better than what drops from many raid bosses. Negating a reason to farm raid bosses.
The Tower is the main reason I left, but the immediate trivializing of all classic loot in just a few days by the massive amount of players and bots sweating content pushed me away more. Teek will be my solo/duo server once it matures. They really ruined EQ for me. Been living on Quarm in the meantime. The Anniversary tower should never have been on a TLP.
Oh wow! This is very interesting. I’m extremely new to EverQuest and have decided to try out Teek and you actually inspired me to try out bard so I’m curious if I will feel this in the near future. Do you feel this problem will persist with each expansion release or will it go away after Tower gear is no longer relevant? Thanks so much for the awesome insightful videos and hopefully see you around Teek!
Been playing EQ off and on since release… Where to begin… There’s been changes through the years that has been equally as big and frustrating but its par for the course. Even if tower gear didnt exist, the raid gear drops/frequency has been heavily altered BECAUSE it’s a TLP. People ignore the game mechanics based on its real time play through… After the games release the first expansion came 8 months later. Yes it took 8 months for velious, then it took a year to get shadows of luclin then another 10 months to get pop and so on. Everything about the game has been altered and the tower gear didnt ruin it, its more like death by a thousand cuts. Everything from the drop rates, population, pace, spells, krono and so on has changed this game so much that the holy trinity of dps healer tank has already been affected. They dont call the game meleequest for nothing. Tower gear is a benefit to the game because casuals can simply get in era gear minus being in a raiding guild. The stats on raid gear is actually way better because for this era its heavily tuned for high ac and saves… None of that matters because guilds were ripping through classic-luclin lets say anyway before tower gear. Plus now with the plers and gear farmers all of that stuff is sped up too. Case and point i got a near bis rogue and its like days 4 of velious release. I have all the tower gear, all the atk gear available minus a mask. (Im giving up 6 atk right now) and missing bis primary. This was never achievable before tlps not just tower gear because ppl now know to batphone, run splits, use personas and so on. Every aspect of the game can be stretched or altered by krono, pling, personas, box crews, drop rates, tower gear, raid splits, gear farmers , epic mqers increased spawn rates, ooc regen and whatever else. You can literally avoid every aspect of the game of you choose to do so. Hell you can go buy accounts at www.ectunnel.com right now, epic’d out and in full tower gear for roughly 100-150 usd. Usually close to end of era you can get decent deals, if youre good enough you can even strip the accounts make krono off the gear and also sell the accounts barebones and probably turn a small profit. Now there will be the introduction of heroic chars soon. Either way. If you think tower gear has dulled the game well from an original eq addict, this is small potatoes lol. I still enjoy the game every now and then but if people want to sit there and say they dont enjoy the game because its now not challenging or its watered down now…. I hate to burst your bubble but this game has been watered down for yeeeears already lol.
I have a shaman on this server, but I think I'm abandoning him until later xpacs. I joined the server because I like the true box rule, free trade, and randomized loot rules...so I thought that eventually it would be like the FV server, but with random loot and true box added. I REALLY like that idea. I don't box and have no need for krono. I feel like the krono farmers will move on, as usual, when the next TLPs open next year. The Random loot rule will then make it possible to get the loot you need easier without having to resort to krono. (This assumes the bott farmers will mostly be gone as they dominiate camps) Combine that with free trade and the average player will be able to get MUCH higher level loot than otherwise open to them. I could be wrong about all of this, and that's ok. My main is a Necro on CT and I'm perfectly happy soloing rares, getting my T3 gear, and sprinkle in a Ultra rare item once in a great while. That is already more than I really "need" to do what I like to do in the game. It's mostly for the "feels" and so on. I don't "need Teek", but am curious about what it might be like in the future. I'll keep my eye on it, but whatever....if I want a "shaman-like" style of play and maintain my independence I'll just play my BST on CT as an alt and call it a day.
When EQ first launched Necro dots wouldnt stick to most raid mobs and all they were able to do was dump their mana at a hugely imbalanced rate to the cleric, lots of classes are familiar with not really having use. Druids were also not really wanted unless you had to port somewhere (except sky or hate) and don't even talk about rangers. It's all about mes, charm and slow and bards have all that and as a bard you will only get better as the expansions open up. As a bard, you are higher up on the list of needs over the afore mentioned classes so I'm not sure what the complaint really is. Tower gear is great and people will benefit from it at least until POP, so let em...
If you feel guilty then play on quarm or 99. Daybreak announced the rules of the server beforehand. Stop trying to change the server architecture that was already announced before launch. Why do you think the server is packed? Free Trade imo. Its effortless to pick up and go to a different server if you're unhappy. The most important thing above anything else are the friendships you forge in the process. Take the good and bad and make the best of it imo. Ofc people are going to use tower gear, they're not going to take it away now. The majority of people want to be op and they'll pay money for it.
The real issue is we are stuck in Kunark era for three months. With Velious launch we won't be thinking much about this, and before we know it we will be prepping for Luclin launch. Casters are going to need to sort of focus items to be at an upperhand come Luclin. That will allow us to begin to sub out some tower gear. I promise you that we have been trivializing Kunark while in classic gear for many years now. As a raiding Wizard I'm excited to have a bard in my group. It ensures I'll have the resists to stand in on some AEs and have a chance at topping the DPS charts.
If you look into the stats, and how the developers programmed it you will see that almost no classic stat matters. The only stats that are important AC/HP/Sta and Str(Dex for bow users, but bows are pretty bad right now.). 255 agility? It does nothing. charisma? useless. wis/int good for mana until soft cap for mana. The content is already trivial in classic/kunark. The reason the gear seems so insane is because the programmers had no idea what stats did and ended up making sets of gear that are completely useless. Most hate/fear sets give stats that are useless for a class. I love Teek because of the power growth, the game is fun to play when you can actually cast spells and not med for 9 minutes and play for 30 seconds. Also, just a tip for new bard player, bards are useless afk buff scrubs until level 75. And EVERYONE thinks they know everything about a bard and they can play it better than you, but in reality they've never invested more time than doing /melody. So don't listen to them. To be clear, bards suck until level 75: IT'S NOT THE GEAR: you're useless because they've ruined the fun parts of bard.
Yeah, Teek was a pretty big disappointment for me. I missed out on Mischief and was pretty excited to finally give that ruleset a shot but the tower gear + running into a few just complete asshole players in random groups threw my motivation out the window. I just picked up Quarm again and I'm having a good time but it is sad to have to resort to a private server to enjoy the game.
I stopped playing ffxi because at high levels you're supposed to use scripts to swap gear depending on what nice you use and it annoyed me I'm not sure what horizons is?
I don't think you can compare combat mechanics in an emulated server such as p99 to teek. Not that your conclusion is wrong. That you have guild you like and have made friends (it sounds like) is really the true Everquest experience.
Tower gear makes the game trivial, but the thing is the first 4 or 5 expansions were already trivial. Tower goes away in December at about the same time when Planes of Power releases, and shortly after that a new TLP will open. The majority of the bot armies and krono farmers will disappear around the same time as well for the new TLP.
You feel less useful because bards in raids really don't do much in Everquest. The primary use of a bard in a raid is to provide haste to the melee group (later it becomes overhaste), and to increase the resists of your group. If your raid force is steam rolling the encounters, it's likely because you are running 72 raiders vs encounters that are only challenging at a player count of 30 or less. Big guilds steam roll this content before tower gear, so its no different now. Try the tower gear on a melee class and solo something and you will see it makes a difference, but it won't win the fight for you. My biggest gripe is that the tower gear invalidates half the other loot in the game which hurts the economy somewhat. If you haven't noticed, the real problem on Teek is the 6 man box crews everywhere taking everything.
Tower gear does make the game easier, but your analysis is way off. Why are you looking at unbuffed stats when talking about raiding? Does your guild not use buffs while raiding? Bards are still incredible. Resist are not maxed with tower gear. Having a bard in your group singing resist songs makes a world of difference. You can go from getting feared most of the time to not getting feared over an entire fight. Just because someone has attack from items doesn't mean they won't benefit from the attack from your songs. More attack is more DPS and makes the raid take less time. Over the course of a raid you can tell what DPS has a bard that is singing the right songs vs one that isn't. Nothing in EverQuest is difficult, with or without the tower gear. If you want a game that difficult this isn't it.
Hey friend, it's the PuddlesUI, as far as I'm aware not on EQInterface. I saw a post about it on Reddit. www.reddit.com/r/everquest/comments/1dmtonx/release_puddlesui_a_new_cleanlooking_user/
Sorry but I have to disagree. Stats matter very little at this point in EQ expansions. AC/HP/resists do matter but the cap is so high on resist even with tower gear its hard to max. Come PoP the tower gear will no longer be BIS and in some cases sooner. People said the same thing when Mischief launched because everyone would be full BIS in a few weeks. The first few expansions are pretty easy and don't need max stats to make it trivial. If you feel useless as a bard or other buff class at this time in the servers life then you either you chose the wrong class to play in the first place or your not playing your class to its full potential. There is way more to a bard than being in a group or raid and /melody 1 2 3 4 5, and the same goes for pretty much every other class out there.
I agree that there is more to a bard than just the melody, but there is an important fact here that you neglected to take into account. I played all of this content at the high end when it was originally released and then again on P99. P99 has it correct and this armor breaks the game like crazy. Why? Resist gear. Back in era, you had to collect resist gear. Your normal armor with max HP at 60 was maybe in-between 2-3k maybe up to 3400 for a tank. Buffed to 5kish. But your resists were fucking trash. So you had to build a resist gear set and sacrifice lots of HP that those pieces of gear didn't have. Lots of HP and STR with a Hammerhead Helm, but you need a Crown of King Tranix with the 20 MR so you don't get feared and run off into the forest. How much HP on the crown? ZERO. So maxed unbuffed HP goes from 2500 or so to well under 2k. Your resists come up above 100 if you are lucky and it's pretty likely that even if your MR is, your cold or fire you need for the dragon, or poison in the case of Trakanon, isn't. So you might not get feared but the AOE is blasting you in the face and you have less HP. With the tower gear, you get the best of both worlds. High HP and great resists on that set break the game like a small branch over your knee.
Bards are amazing. You’re always going to feel useless until you become the main puller in raids. The tower gear is great compared to current content gear. It however is a reward for 25 years of EQ and we should be thankful for it. Kunark and Velious are hardly difficult - and people have played it so many times that this just makes it MORE trivial than it already was. It doesn’t change how invaluable you or others may feel. It doesn’t trivialize content anymore than it already was. Don’t let the people in your guild convince you this is a bad thing. The loudest people always fine something to complain about. If it wasn’t tower gear they would just be complaining about Krono and the PLers and botters.
A lot of it is just grumpy, boomer-driven, "get off my lawn", "back in my day" shit. The game "should" be a certain way, because that's how it was 20+ years ago, and anything else they'll complain.
Bards are one of the most important classes in the raid. Every dps group wants a bard/shaman. And tanks love bards for AC song. Plus if you really want to know EQ doesn’t really start until Omens of War
I think the devs should have engaged in a fairly simple thought experiment: How likely is it that tower gear might spoil some people’s enjoyment of Teek? Pretty likely. How likely is it that the *absence* of tower gear might spoil some people’s enjoyment of Teek? Highly unlikely. Seems like a pretty straightforward decision.
I am considering coming back very soon. Possibly to Teek, even though I will be a little bit behind everyone else. More likely by January when a newer TLP launches I heard about. And this so called tower gear sounds game breaking. Half of the fun of the original game IS the struggle of getting yourself geared up, but the best part of original EQ was grouping and spending time with other people. Concepts entirely lost on many gamers now days who have no patience. They have grown up in a world of immediate gratification, and no child left behind. Some of us are masochists by modern standards, and we don't mind the actual grind. I couldn't help but laugh at people complaining about grinding for 30 minutes in WoW.... they obviously NEVER played original EQ, and I point that out and laugh at them. But it seems somebody high up is playing on the server possibly and is wanting something to try and "speed things along" regarding the original test for raiders and that is "Putting in your personal work to progress yourself for the good of the raid force." And over powering characters like this cheapens the experience.
go back to p99 boomer
The random/free trade servers are already eq on easy mode regardless. Being able to buy raid gear thats normally no-drop. Getting 3x raid loot when you do raid. Getting top teir raid loot from low teir raid bosses (as you will see in future xpacs) it all puts eq on easy mode. But most people i played with on mischief prefered it over a traditional server because they didnt have to suffer so much to succeed, especially with the pace of time locked progression... also bards do become pretty awsome in later xpacs with aas. In this era bards are mainly just needed for resists. In a few xpacs this will all smooth over.
You certainly have a valid point about gear stat capping people and therefore pushing bard's usefulness aside to a degree in an early expansion. I wouldn't despair about it too much though. Selos is still awesome. You can slow. Everyone knows how good bards eventually get and their songs usefulness becomes above and beyond any gear you could be wearing. They get overhaste, +spell dmg, multiple melee & spell proc songs, AA selos buff, AE mez, mana/health regen, Buffs to healers, buffs to tanks. Amazing AA buffs and their 2.0 epic click is easily top 3 epics in the game that is useful forever. Eventually AA's allow you to twist more and more songs (like 8 songs) Any DPS topping charts in later expansions has a bard in their group 100% guaranteed. When you get overhaste in velious expect all melee dps to be knocking at your door. Also, I'd rather pull with a bard than a monk any day of the week. You get basically unlimited Fading memories eventually. You just exist in a very early era with some odd circumstances and before bards get a lot of good shit. In the meantime you could just load up some chants and try to push your own DPS and wait till bard buffs really come into their own.
You are right :). I am looking forward to the next expansions
Pull baby pull!!
My creds: Started playing EQ in beta phase 3, kept playing pretty consistently til around 2005 then left for a bit to play WoW. Came back briefly several times before starting on P99 which I played regularly for a few years. Then starting with Phinigel I have dabbled on almost every TLP that has come out since then. Also did a handful of other lesser known emulated servers in between.
My 2 cents is people are drastically overstating the issue of tower gear. Yes it's very good and yes it trivializes some early era raid gear. The lack of AC on it makes it not BiS for some slots for tanks already in Velious. By Luclin even more will be not BiS. Probably almost every slot for tanks. Once PoP hits it'll be filler slots here and there but most of it will be replaced if you're raiding PoTime regularly as any class. Post PoP it's pretty much irrelevant. Other commenters have also noted these random loot servers are pretty much intentionally designed to be a somewhat "ezmode" version of the game. Loot even outside of tower is significantly easier to get than regular servers and they added stuff like out of combat regen early amongst other things. The numbers speak for themselves. Teek is the most popular EQ server in history. The majority love ezmode EQ.
If you ask me the MUCH bigger issue that isn't being addressed in any way from what I can tell is the issue of mass botters / ae PLers / RMTers. This issue in my view is getting worse and worse and worse every single TLP and has reached a fever pitch on Teek. There are so many people playing for the sole purpose of acquiring and RMTing krono for $10 on these secondary market websites and for many of them their rent literally depends on it. People joke about it but I know for a fact in some cases it's literally the truth. People running 8+ mage bots 24 hours a day 7 days a week monopolizing entire zones for quite literally weeks at a time. Reported prolly 100+ times a day and no action ever gets taken. I spoke to one personally who boldly claimed "Report me if you want. Daybreak can't touch me". I hoped that wasn't true when they said it but apparently it is. Hundreds maybe thousands of "missing" krono being reimbursed by daybreak staff with raw plat value thus causing the highest inflation ever seen on a TLP this fresh ever before (by like 40-60x?). All this stuff gets worse and worse every single TLP and it's reaching a point where it's kind of ruined the game for me. I think Teek might be my last TLP unless daybreak makes some changes and gets this situation under control. I'll stick to emulated servers where they somehow keep this shit in check far better with at most a handful of completely volunteer staff.
The tower gear bridges the gap between people who have time to raid and people who dont. I help take care of a family member who has severe health issues. I, at no point can commit to any specific play time nor commit to a raid if it lasts longer than 30 minutes and my grouping time varies depending on whats going on in my day. There will be times when I can get into a group for an hour or two or times when I just join a group and suddenly have to leave. I am sorry if Tower Gear damages your experience with the game but personally I was thrilled to see it because it ensures that I will have the ability to participate in content I might not be able to otherwise.
In the time that I've had my tower gear I have actually been able to win or buy gear from the current expansion we are in (Velious) that is actually better than the tower gear itself. The biggest reason why this seems to be a problem for so many is because most raid and quested gear is tradable on teek. The economy inflation is out of control at this point and I see that but for someone like me who plays the game to relax, I dont pay much attention to any of that. I just play.
Bards are one of the most important classes in the raid. Every dps group wants a bard/shaman. And tanks love bards for AC song. Plus if you really want to know EQ doesn’t really start until Omens of War
i agree with you 100%. That's why I play on private servers. I would play on regular servers if it wasn't for the krono thing. I prefer playing on Lazarus so I can just relax and enjoy myself. The people are very amazing and nice. I have played enough of the original EQ to want to go through all that "challenge" again. I can play a box of my own heroes at my own pace, and not deal with any toxicity whatsoever. Sure people don't really group much on that server unless for specific things, but most everybody chats. I made plenty of friends in a week, and I don't have to suffer with daybreak.
I haven't heard of Lazarus, what is it?
I am actually a new player to EQ. Friend brought me over when we fizzled out of WOW SOD.
As another main bard on Teek, I think this is wayyyyy overstating the impact of tower gear. I think tower gear definitely has had a major impact, but the issues you're concerned with aren't really among them imo. The effect is probably most pronounced in Kunark, which I guess is when you're making this video, but even now in Velious the gear has caught up substantially to the tower gear, and surpassed in some cases. AC especially is significantly better in many slots from Velious gear. Tower gear does provide more ability stats, somewhat more HP, resists (in some cases) and mana regen though but that doesn't really lessen the impact of a bard.
Even without tower gear, melee are capping str easily, and probably all of their physical stats with avatar procs and sham buffs. With tower gear they just dont have to waste buff slots on shm buffs and I don't think anyone is complaining about that. And the value of bard songs is basically unchanged --
In a tank group, you are still running probably whatever resists are necessary, Niv's for AC, McVaxius for Atk/DS, maybe Psalm for DS - tower gear doesn't change your song lineup or usefulness at all.
In melee dps groups the +Atk from McVaxius (along with epic proc) is basically all you are directly adding right now either way, plus resists (just as useful with or without tower gear), and potentially hp regen/rune songs. I mean the lack of impact of the ability stat components of our songs is really no different than the haste component of our songs, epic proc, and siren song/nature's melody effects being irrelevant 99.9% of the time.
And in caster DPS groups, we don't have anything that *directly* aids them, though resists/regen etc are still useful.
One impactful thing a bard can be doing that you didn't even mention is resist debuffs on raid targets. Occlusion of Sound, as well as chants of the appropriate type can significantly help every caster in your raid land nukes and debuffs.
None of these things are lessened by tower gear.
The biggest impact of tower gear is devaluing raid gear in those slots and making content easier in general by putting people at bis or near-bis in half their slots from day 1. But as we hit Luclin and then PoP the desirability of this stuff will continue to go down (even as the tower gear upgrades to the level 65 versions, as the best stuff out of Plane of Time is gonna be better.)
In MY opinion, the eras where this gear make the biggest impact (Kunark and Velious) are the most boring and getting the power boost is welcome to reduce some of the tedium inherent in them. But bottom line, it doesn't lessen the usefulness of bards at all.
Oh wow. I was in Chef's Kiss for a bit. Seethy here. I really enjoyed my time with you guys. But coming from p99 and other emulated servers, daybreak's system and way they managed eq live/tlp is really pay 2 win and they don't really do anything about the botting and rampant rmt. When I got a PD robe raiding with you guys, I had tells asking to buy it from for real life cash and krono from people (not from guild). So I had to step away from the game. Atm, Im waiting for luclin to launch of Quarm, where I will probably live out my eq days.
Nice seeing you, Yenneth!
Im looking forward to getting back to Teek. Life been busy.
There are augs for melee players which have 4atk + 1HP regen per slot on top of the resists, HP and stats you can slot in every item of the tower gear.
No one is forcing you to wear the tower gear.
Very well thought out, and the end did get me thinking you butthead
Is that rat illusion a Daybreak potion? I don't remember it being available in Kunark. I recognize the skin from Dragon Necropolis from Velius.
One other issue regarding this tower gear, is it nullifies much of the current xpac gear. It's better than what drops from many raid bosses. Negating a reason to farm raid bosses.
It's an achievement from reaching level 60 on the server Vaniki, which is then claimable on Teek
they could of halved the tower gear stats and everyone would be happy
The Tower is the main reason I left, but the immediate trivializing of all classic loot in just a few days by the massive amount of players and bots sweating content pushed me away more. Teek will be my solo/duo server once it matures. They really ruined EQ for me. Been living on Quarm in the meantime. The Anniversary tower should never have been on a TLP.
Oh wow! This is very interesting. I’m extremely new to EverQuest and have decided to try out Teek and you actually inspired me to try out bard so I’m curious if I will feel this in the near future.
Do you feel this problem will persist with each expansion release or will it go away after Tower gear is no longer relevant?
Thanks so much for the awesome insightful videos and hopefully see you around Teek!
It will not persist. I would suggest playing Bard as they get better and better as each expansion goes this is just a problem for the current one :)
@@yenneth thanks for the clarity! Can’t wait to keep exploring.
Been playing EQ off and on since release…
Where to begin…
There’s been changes through the years that has been equally as big and frustrating but its par for the course.
Even if tower gear didnt exist, the raid gear drops/frequency has been heavily altered BECAUSE it’s a TLP.
People ignore the game mechanics based on its real time play through…
After the games release the first expansion came 8 months later. Yes it took 8 months for velious, then it took a year to get shadows of luclin then another 10 months to get pop and so on.
Everything about the game has been altered and the tower gear didnt ruin it, its more like death by a thousand cuts.
Everything from the drop rates, population, pace, spells, krono and so on has changed this game so much that the holy trinity of dps healer tank has already been affected.
They dont call the game meleequest for nothing.
Tower gear is a benefit to the game because casuals can simply get in era gear minus being in a raiding guild.
The stats on raid gear is actually way better because for this era its heavily tuned for high ac and saves…
None of that matters because guilds were ripping through classic-luclin lets say anyway before tower gear.
Plus now with the plers and gear farmers all of that stuff is sped up too.
Case and point i got a near bis rogue and its like days 4 of velious release. I have all the tower gear, all the atk gear available minus a mask. (Im giving up 6 atk right now) and missing bis primary.
This was never achievable before tlps not just tower gear because ppl now know to batphone, run splits, use personas and so on.
Every aspect of the game can be stretched or altered by krono, pling, personas, box crews, drop rates, tower gear, raid splits, gear farmers , epic mqers increased spawn rates, ooc regen and whatever else.
You can literally avoid every aspect of the game of you choose to do so.
Hell you can go buy accounts at www.ectunnel.com right now, epic’d out and in full tower gear for roughly 100-150 usd.
Usually close to end of era you can get decent deals, if youre good enough you can even strip the accounts make krono off the gear and also sell the accounts barebones and probably turn a small profit.
Now there will be the introduction of heroic chars soon.
Either way. If you think tower gear has dulled the game well from an original eq addict, this is small potatoes lol.
I still enjoy the game every now and then but if people want to sit there and say they dont enjoy the game because its now not challenging or its watered down now….
I hate to burst your bubble but this game has been watered down for yeeeears already lol.
Idea that this gear alleviates the need for a shaman in a group is not accurate... this gear doesnt slow mobs by 80%
I have a shaman on this server, but I think I'm abandoning him until later xpacs. I joined the server because I like the true box rule, free trade, and randomized loot rules...so I thought that eventually it would be like the FV server, but with random loot and true box added. I REALLY like that idea. I don't box and have no need for krono.
I feel like the krono farmers will move on, as usual, when the next TLPs open next year. The Random loot rule will then make it possible to get the loot you need easier without having to resort to krono. (This assumes the bott farmers will mostly be gone as they dominiate camps) Combine that with free trade and the average player will be able to get MUCH higher level loot than otherwise open to them.
I could be wrong about all of this, and that's ok. My main is a Necro on CT and I'm perfectly happy soloing rares, getting my T3 gear, and sprinkle in a Ultra rare item once in a great while. That is already more than I really "need" to do what I like to do in the game. It's mostly for the "feels" and so on.
I don't "need Teek", but am curious about what it might be like in the future. I'll keep my eye on it, but whatever....if I want a "shaman-like" style of play and maintain my independence I'll just play my BST on CT as an alt and call it a day.
When EQ first launched Necro dots wouldnt stick to most raid mobs and all they were able to do was dump their mana at a hugely imbalanced rate to the cleric, lots of classes are familiar with not really having use. Druids were also not really wanted unless you had to port somewhere (except sky or hate) and don't even talk about rangers. It's all about mes, charm and slow and bards have all that and as a bard you will only get better as the expansions open up. As a bard, you are higher up on the list of needs over the afore mentioned classes so I'm not sure what the complaint really is. Tower gear is great and people will benefit from it at least until POP, so let em...
Youll be required for Luclin. Or when your killing dragons.
I bought 4 sets of tower gear for 36,000 but I have had a real problem getting INT caster gear as a whole.
it is 100% classic + wow
everquest is still active? holy shit i didnt know that
If you feel guilty then play on quarm or 99. Daybreak announced the rules of the server beforehand. Stop trying to change the server architecture that was already announced before launch. Why do you think the server is packed? Free Trade imo. Its effortless to pick up and go to a different server if you're unhappy. The most important thing above anything else are the friendships you forge in the process. Take the good and bad and make the best of it imo. Ofc people are going to use tower gear, they're not going to take it away now. The majority of people want to be op and they'll pay money for it.
Can we all just label teek as the "handicap" server now?
The real issue is we are stuck in Kunark era for three months. With Velious launch we won't be thinking much about this, and before we know it we will be prepping for Luclin launch. Casters are going to need to sort of focus items to be at an upperhand come Luclin. That will allow us to begin to sub out some tower gear. I promise you that we have been trivializing Kunark while in classic gear for many years now. As a raiding Wizard I'm excited to have a bard in my group. It ensures I'll have the resists to stand in on some AEs and have a chance at topping the DPS charts.
If you look into the stats, and how the developers programmed it you will see that almost no classic stat matters. The only stats that are important AC/HP/Sta and Str(Dex for bow users, but bows are pretty bad right now.). 255 agility? It does nothing. charisma? useless. wis/int good for mana until soft cap for mana. The content is already trivial in classic/kunark. The reason the gear seems so insane is because the programmers had no idea what stats did and ended up making sets of gear that are completely useless. Most hate/fear sets give stats that are useless for a class. I love Teek because of the power growth, the game is fun to play when you can actually cast spells and not med for 9 minutes and play for 30 seconds. Also, just a tip for new bard player, bards are useless afk buff scrubs until level 75. And EVERYONE thinks they know everything about a bard and they can play it better than you, but in reality they've never invested more time than doing /melody. So don't listen to them. To be clear, bards suck until level 75: IT'S NOT THE GEAR: you're useless because they've ruined the fun parts of bard.
Heroic stats are for you bro!
Yeah, Teek was a pretty big disappointment for me. I missed out on Mischief and was pretty excited to finally give that ruleset a shot but the tower gear + running into a few just complete asshole players in random groups threw my motivation out the window. I just picked up Quarm again and I'm having a good time but it is sad to have to resort to a private server to enjoy the game.
hey man just wanted to say I love your vids. i think you have a real voice for Radio/YT. have you ever tried FF11?
Thank you for the kind words
Yes! I played ffxi a long time around when it first came out and then more recently on their live servers
@@yenneth what do you think about ff11 vs Eq? would you try out a modern server like horizon and make a comparison?
I stopped playing ffxi because at high levels you're supposed to use scripts to swap gear depending on what nice you use and it annoyed me
I'm not sure what horizons is?
@@yenneth horizonxi is a modern private server with their own tweaks to QOL and classes i played it last year on pc before trying out EQ!
I'll look into it :)
I don't think you can compare combat mechanics in an emulated server such as p99 to teek. Not that your conclusion is wrong. That you have guild you like and have made friends (it sounds like) is really the true Everquest experience.
yeah my dude, Daybreak are a bunch of idiots...
Can you say New Player a few more times. 😂
ohhh blizzard did release way more lol
New with epic?
Sounds like its time to come to Project Quarm.
Haha, maybe!
Tower gear makes the game trivial, but the thing is the first 4 or 5 expansions were already trivial. Tower goes away in December at about the same time when Planes of Power releases, and shortly after that a new TLP will open. The majority of the bot armies and krono farmers will disappear around the same time as well for the new TLP.
You feel less useful because bards in raids really don't do much in Everquest. The primary use of a bard in a raid is to provide haste to the melee group (later it becomes overhaste), and to increase the resists of your group. If your raid force is steam rolling the encounters, it's likely because you are running 72 raiders vs encounters that are only challenging at a player count of 30 or less. Big guilds steam roll this content before tower gear, so its no different now. Try the tower gear on a melee class and solo something and you will see it makes a difference, but it won't win the fight for you. My biggest gripe is that the tower gear invalidates half the other loot in the game which hurts the economy somewhat. If you haven't noticed, the real problem on Teek is the 6 man box crews everywhere taking everything.
How do you have time to make these videos? Aren't you supposed to be handling PoSky loot?
Tower gear does make the game easier, but your analysis is way off.
Why are you looking at unbuffed stats when talking about raiding? Does your guild not use buffs while raiding?
Bards are still incredible. Resist are not maxed with tower gear. Having a bard in your group singing resist songs makes a world of difference. You can go from getting feared most of the time to not getting feared over an entire fight. Just because someone has attack from items doesn't mean they won't benefit from the attack from your songs. More attack is more DPS and makes the raid take less time. Over the course of a raid you can tell what DPS has a bard that is singing the right songs vs one that isn't.
Nothing in EverQuest is difficult, with or without the tower gear. If you want a game that difficult this isn't it.
What UI is this?
Hey friend, it's the PuddlesUI, as far as I'm aware not on EQInterface. I saw a post about it on Reddit.
www.reddit.com/r/everquest/comments/1dmtonx/release_puddlesui_a_new_cleanlooking_user/
Sorry but I have to disagree. Stats matter very little at this point in EQ expansions. AC/HP/resists do matter but the cap is so high on resist even with tower gear its hard to max. Come PoP the tower gear will no longer be BIS and in some cases sooner. People said the same thing when Mischief launched because everyone would be full BIS in a few weeks. The first few expansions are pretty easy and don't need max stats to make it trivial. If you feel useless as a bard or other buff class at this time in the servers life then you either you chose the wrong class to play in the first place or your not playing your class to its full potential. There is way more to a bard than being in a group or raid and /melody 1 2 3 4 5, and the same goes for pretty much every other class out there.
Agree. Take stat buffers like shaman... most of it barely does anything in this era.
I agree that there is more to a bard than just the melody, but there is an important fact here that you neglected to take into account.
I played all of this content at the high end when it was originally released and then again on P99. P99 has it correct and this armor breaks the game like crazy.
Why?
Resist gear.
Back in era, you had to collect resist gear. Your normal armor with max HP at 60 was maybe in-between 2-3k maybe up to 3400 for a tank. Buffed to 5kish. But your resists were fucking trash.
So you had to build a resist gear set and sacrifice lots of HP that those pieces of gear didn't have. Lots of HP and STR with a Hammerhead Helm, but you need a Crown of King Tranix with the 20 MR so you don't get feared and run off into the forest. How much HP on the crown? ZERO.
So maxed unbuffed HP goes from 2500 or so to well under 2k. Your resists come up above 100 if you are lucky and it's pretty likely that even if your MR is, your cold or fire you need for the dragon, or poison in the case of Trakanon, isn't. So you might not get feared but the AOE is blasting you in the face and you have less HP.
With the tower gear, you get the best of both worlds. High HP and great resists on that set break the game like a small branch over your knee.
Overhaste?
Bards are amazing. You’re always going to feel useless until you become the main puller in raids.
The tower gear is great compared to current content gear. It however is a reward for 25 years of EQ and we should be thankful for it. Kunark and Velious are hardly difficult - and people have played it so many times that this just makes it MORE trivial than it already was. It doesn’t change how invaluable you or others may feel. It doesn’t trivialize content anymore than it already was.
Don’t let the people in your guild convince you this is a bad thing. The loudest people always fine something to complain about. If it wasn’t tower gear they would just be complaining about Krono and the PLers and botters.
A lot of it is just grumpy, boomer-driven, "get off my lawn", "back in my day" shit. The game "should" be a certain way, because that's how it was 20+ years ago, and anything else they'll complain.
I think yall just like to complain about anything and everything. Game is 25 years old and this is fun as all hell.
You should turn on "New Models" unless you prefer the old 2d models.
Bards are one of the most important classes in the raid. Every dps group wants a bard/shaman. And tanks love bards for AC song. Plus if you really want to know EQ doesn’t really start until Omens of War