Forums » Pantheon Classes

Epic Gear Quests

    • 69 posts
    December 9, 2016 9:34 PM PST

    I completed the ranger 1.0 epic 4 times on seperate rangers.  I also completed 2.5 ranger epic on 2 others.  Why did I do this?  Because the ranger epic quest in Everquest was fufilling.  Sometimes getting drops from bosses (damn Shattered Emerald of Corruption taking me real like 1 year to obtain), and other items are crazy hard.  Even though the tasks were long and arduous, it was that investment in time that made me litterally shake when completing my first turn in for Swiftwind and finally Earthcaller. 

    This story is the same for thousands of old school EQ players concerning the overwhelming satisfaction of completing their epics.  All the sacrifices in-game and IRL were worth the payoff.  EQ at the time thought far enough ahead to make tthese 1.0 epics relevant to future expansions and worth holding onto.  Aure, some held up way better than others, but the point is that they were relevant for more than one expansion.

    Of course there will be guides on-line eventually for any epic quest designed, but that won't take away from the teamwork and cooperation needed to obtain these items.  If you guys can think far ahead enough to have these epics stay relavent for a good while, I think most will take up the time to do them.

    Please be careful of bottlenecks though.  Many warriors, bards and other classes actually quit their epic quests due to insane low scale drops and the perma-camping of epic quest mobs.  I remember the frustration from guildmates that would curse all the game developers on a daily basis due to the shortsightedness of how certain drops were almost impossible to obtain.  Being that most of the team has played EQ, I'm sure you guys remember the major issues with 1.0 epic quests and will plan/design accordingly.

    Thanks again for all your hard work and I hope that it pays off for you guys in spades.


    This post was edited by Radamus at December 9, 2016 9:35 PM PST
    • 154 posts
    March 30, 2017 12:21 AM PDT
    I disagree, not everyone should be able to get an epic. If everyone has an epic..... it's not epic
    • 93 posts
    April 26, 2017 2:21 PM PDT

    Taledar said: I disagree, not everyone should be able to get an epic. If everyone has an epic..... it's not epic

    I respectfully disagree with that and perhaps it's a matter of semantics.  I'm assuming you don't mean that some random characters are systematically prevented from being able to obtain an epic weapon.  

    I think everyone should be able to get their epic but that the quest is difficult or time consuming enough so that some people will choose to not do it.  It shouldn't be such that some players are literally unable to accomplish the tasks.

    I would hope that VR would design the epic quests such that the time and effort needed to acquire the epic is balanced.  If most people end up getting theirs then I think that gives credence to the fact that the quest line and reward were well balanced.

    I'm certainly not suggesting easy mode or anything of the kind.  I worked for over a year on getting my Shammy Spear of Fate in EQ and when I finally got it it felt fantastic.  Being mostly a solo and small group player in a small guild it took tenacity, patience, persuasion and unadulter determination to overcome some of the hurdles. But I did it!  It's still one of, if not the, greatest gaming memory I have. I don't want to see that feeling denied to anyone who, like me, was willing to grind it out.

    • 154 posts
    April 26, 2017 5:11 PM PDT

    urgatorbait said:

    Taledar said: I disagree, not everyone should be able to get an epic. If everyone has an epic..... it's not epic

    I respectfully disagree with that and perhaps it's a matter of semantics.  I'm assuming you don't mean that some random characters are systematically prevented from being able to obtain an epic weapon.  

    I think everyone should be able to get their epic but that the quest is difficult or time consuming enough so that some people will choose to not do it.  It shouldn't be such that some players are literally unable to accomplish the tasks.

    I would hope that VR would design the epic quests such that the time and effort needed to acquire the epic is balanced.  If most people end up getting theirs then I think that gives credence to the fact that the quest line and reward were well balanced.

    I'm certainly not suggesting easy mode or anything of the kind.  I worked for over a year on getting my Shammy Spear of Fate in EQ and when I finally got it it felt fantastic.  Being mostly a solo and small group player in a small guild it took tenacity, patience, persuasion and unadulter determination to overcome some of the hurdles. But I did it!  It's still one of, if not the, greatest gaming memory I have. I don't want to see that feeling denied to anyone who, like me, was willing to grind it out.

     

    I figured it was obvious that I meant not be able to get it due to difficulty or time retraints on the players availability, not some random person just not able to do it.


    This post was edited by Taledar at April 26, 2017 5:12 PM PDT
    • 65 posts
    April 30, 2017 6:22 PM PDT

    philo said:

    Anyone have a better idea on how to deal with epics and power creep over the long term? 

    I liked the epic quests in EQ but the epic rewards in Vanguard were better in my opinion. In Vanguard when you got your epic, it wasn't actually a weapon, it was an augment that only fit into a weapon slot. I know some might cringe at the idea that they don't have a unique piece of gear to show off as their reward, but they did have a unique particle effect and it alleviated the problem of either having to replace your epic or not wear any new weapons for a long time. The questing poriton of doing the epic on Vanguard was very boring compared to EQ, as it was almost just a pure grind. I would prefer augment rewards as epics that can carry on inside which ever weapons you choose, but more of an EQ style quest adventure for it.

     

     

    • 1860 posts
    May 2, 2017 9:17 AM PDT

    torveld said:

    philo said:

    Anyone have a better idea on how to deal with epics and power creep over the long term? 

    I liked the epic quests in EQ but the epic rewards in Vanguard were better in my opinion. In Vanguard when you got your epic, it wasn't actually a weapon, it was an augment that only fit into a weapon slot. I know some might cringe at the idea that they don't have a unique piece of gear to show off as their reward, but they did have a unique particle effect and it alleviated the problem of either having to replace your epic or not wear any new weapons for a long time. The questing poriton of doing the epic on Vanguard was very boring compared to EQ, as it was almost just a pure grind. I would prefer augment rewards as epics that can carry on inside which ever weapons you choose, but more of an EQ style quest adventure for it.

     

    There is something about "epic augmentation" that doesn't seem very epic compared to "epic weapon". 

    How good was the augmentation?  Could you put it on a rusty dagger and still have the best weapon in the game for your class (other than other weapons with the same augment)?  Did it always result in giving the player the best possible item they could attain ie:epic?  Or were there times that someone attained the epic augment and might still not have had the best possible item for their class because the weapon they applied it to was substandard?

    Does that not lead to the same circumstance where power creep slowly makes epic weapons obsolete?  When other augmentations become available in future expansions doesn't that comparitively minimize the epic augmentations effectiveness or, eventually,  make it completely obsolete? 

    I understand the idea behind it.  Having an epic augmentation as opposed to a weapon might extend its usefullness for a bit but, as I talk it out, it seems like you run into the same issues eventually anyway...and you don't have the "cool factor" of actually having an epic weapon.  I'm unsure about that idea.

    • 65 posts
    May 2, 2017 11:11 AM PDT

    philo said:

    There is something about "epic augmentation" that doesn't seem very epic compared to "epic weapon". 

    How good was the augmentation?  Could you put it on a rusty dagger and still have the best weapon in the game for your class (other than other weapons with the same augment)?  Did it always result in giving the player the best possible item they could attain ie:epic?  Or were there times that someone attained the epic augment and might still not have had the best possible item for their class because the weapon they applied it to was substandard?

    Does that not lead to the same circumstance where power creep slowly makes epic weapons obsolete?  When other augmentations become available in future expansions doesn't that comparitively minimize the epic augmentations effectiveness or, eventually,  make it completely obsolete? 

    I understand the idea behind it.  Having an epic augmentation as opposed to a weapon might extend its usefullness for a bit but, as I talk it out, it seems like you run into the same issues eventually anyway...and you don't have the "cool factor" of actually having an epic weapon.  I'm unsure about that idea.

    First of all I am not proposing an exact rehash of Vanguard's epic system, I just think that the idea of an epic augmentation as opposed to epic weapon was an upgrade from EQ.

    In Vanguard the epic augmentation only fit into one kind of weapon slot called "soul". In VG there was a heavy focus on augmentations as each piece of gear at max level usually had 3-5 different slots to put different types of augmentations into. The name of each slot dictated what type of augment would fit inside it, "primal" would house stat based augs that increased your str, or int or hp regen or mana regen. "rune" would house things like increased critical chance, critical damage multiplier, increased weapon damage, reduced physical, or magical damage.  Soul slot was not available in all weapons in the game, usually only from high end encounters. The thing to understand about that though is that in order to be able to acquire your epic in the first place you had to go through so many trials, and grinds and raids that if you have the ability to acquire the epic itself then you certainly had the ability to acquire a weapon with a soul slot.

    The epic augmentation was different from all the other augs in that it gave stats but it also provided a unique effect for each class that was usually of critical importance to that charcter where having it would make whatever weapon it was in better than any other without it. For example the bard's gave a modifier to their song that allowed anyone effected by it to decrease their global cooldown from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds. This was a critically important effect for the bards to have. Monks had a burst damage ability that they could activate once they proc'd so many stacks of a debuff onto the mob that had a 5 minute cooldown but was extremely powerful. So essentially these effects never became outdated because they were unique, and the slot that the augment fit into was not shared by any other aug's that could potentially become powerful enough to negate the effect of the epic.


    This post was edited by torveld at May 2, 2017 12:27 PM PDT
    • 1860 posts
    May 2, 2017 4:44 PM PDT

    I guess that explanation leads to more questions.  (I don't need to know specific effects of the augmentations. )

    How many years and expansions before VG stopped adding additional content were these epic augs implemented? Was there at least a few large expansions that included lvl increases that came after the epic augs?  I guess I'm wondering if there was a substantial enough time period for them to actually have been affected  by power creep? 

    This is an absolute statement: "essentially these effects never became outdated because they were unique, and the slot that the augment fit into was not shared by any other aug's that could potentially become powerful enough to negate the effect of the epic."

    I have a hard time accepting ^that statement.  It is more likely that there simply wasn't enough time for enough power creep to be added to the game.  Maybe give it 5 or 10 more years and there would have been?  Hard to know.  There is always a better/more efficient/more useful effect that can be added later that removes the uniqueness of the older effect.  That being said, it sounds like they took ideas for the epic aug system directly from feedback from EQs system.  The effect on epic weapons in EQ was often times used for a long time, even after the weapon itself became obsolete.  People complained that the effect was the only useful part of their epic over the long run.  It seems like the epic augs might have been in response to some of those complaints.  They were listening.

    I get that it is easier for effects to not become outdated as easily as stats.  But it still seems like the same thing will happen in the long run.  The epic weapon...or epic augmented weapon will at best become a useful clicky...at worst become not worth the bank space it is taking up.

    Unless you can upgrade either the weapon or the augment somehow, years down the line it will not be as valuable.

     


    This post was edited by philo at May 2, 2017 6:11 PM PDT
    • 65 posts
    May 3, 2017 4:30 AM PDT

    Vanguard suffered from extreme power bloat. Beofre I quit my monk could walk around with over a 90% chance to crit with every buff. I started it a few years after launch so I don't know how exactly it got to that point, but one of the main problems with the game is that everyone was literally capped on their stat benefits from gear later on in the game. After epics I think there was only 2-3 major content patches over several years, and none increased the level cap. Is it possible that given more time the epic augmentations would have become outdated? Yeah absolutely, but one of the problems was they had to keep inventing new stat systems that players were not capped on to increase their power level more. The game was trapped by itself in so many ways.

    The main point to the epics was to give each class a unique effect that would be useful to them outside the regular stat benefits seen from most gear upgrades. The balance of each one is a different topic of debate but the one I had on my monk for example was a direct damaged based ability that was based on % weapon damage. Therefore if in 5 years I had a new weapon that was stronger, the effect from my epic would have scaled into that weapon, making it relatively as powerful as before. I feel like the team would have had to really go out of there way to intentionally design a duplicate effect to the epic but stronger in every way to make it useless. The way the epic is designed dictates how useful it will be down the road in my opinion, the problem is designing something of nearly equal power for everyone that will have a lasting impact.

    If VG had tons of development and level increases and wasn't plagued by capping issues then yeah I can see it getting outdated after 3-4 expansions if the epic didn't scale. The positive side to me is that you can equip new and more powerful weapons from those bosses or expansions without being stuck with either replacing your hard earned epic or turning it into a clicky or proc item or whatever the case may be where it isn't your primary weapon anymore.


    This post was edited by torveld at May 3, 2017 4:35 AM PDT
    • 1860 posts
    May 3, 2017 11:24 AM PDT

    torveld said:

    First of all I am not proposing an exact rehash of Vanguard's epic system

    This ^ was your quote from a couple posts back.  I'm wondering what your proposal would be?  How would you change VGs system?

    torveld said:

    Vanguard suffered from extreme power bloat. Beofre I quit my monk could walk around with over a 90% chance to crit with every buff. I started it a few years after launch so I don't know how exactly it got to that point,

    It's an interesting view compared to what I saw.  I was in early alpha and beta and never ended up playing post launch after soe took over.  I never witnessed the "extreme power bloat".

    torveld said:

     The positive side to me is that you can equip new and more powerful weapons from those bosses or expansions without being stuck with either replacing your hard earned epic or turning it into a clicky or proc item or whatever the case may be where it isn't your primary weapon anymore.

    I think the above sentence is where we have some separation of opinion.  To use your monk epic augments effect as an example, it added a % weapon damage.  It seems easy to add, and pretty much a given that eventually, other +% weapon damage effects will be added to game.

    It seems like we will run into the same problem with epic augs as we would with epic weapons /shrug.  I guess it extends the length of time before the item becomes obsolete if you can put the aug into a new weapon.  It don't think it is a great solution though.

    Do you have other solutions?

     


    This post was edited by philo at May 3, 2017 11:33 AM PDT
    • 65 posts
    May 4, 2017 7:37 AM PDT

    The main concept that I have problem with is epic's being weapons that go into your weapon slot. Weapons are different things to different characters, more so than any other slot in the game. To a cleric it might just be a book with various stats or some kind of powerful equipped effect. To a rogue it is the way they do their job and the item that directly affects their job the most. If the epic is a weapon then it becomes a situation where you either have to design future weapons to be less powerful than the epics or you have to admit that the epic is not the pinnacle of gearing and will become easily outdated in a short period of time.

    I guess if it were up to me I would make the epic be a slot on your character sheet that cannot be filled by anything except the epic. What it is called or whether it has an appearance is largely irreleavnt to me but I guess we can assume it will have something. The fact that you have to look at an empty slot in your character sheet is enough to pique people's interest or turn on their OCD enough that they just have to get something in there. I would make the epic be more ability based, more of like an epic ability that is class defining, but the item slot would also give some amount of stats. It would be incredibly hard to balance the power level of each ability across the classes but I feel it could be done.

    If the epic quest were long enough and epic enough the reward could be broken into three stages, maybe the first stage you could get half the stats of the epic for completing, the second stage you could recieve the other half of the stats, the final stage reward could be the epic ability. The epic quest itself doesnt necessarily need to be tiered in difficulty I just think that a reward as you progress along the quest would be in order.

    I will just make a random example up for clarity, if a clerics epic were, 200 mana, 6 mana regen, 30 AC, and the epic ability "Surge of life"  activate: for the next 30 seconds your healing spells cause no agro, have a 50% higher chance to crit, and cost no mana. 10 minute cooldown. Again it is hard to state something that could be an epic ability effect without knowing if other effects like this would exist in the game. This example is based on the premise that there is no other clicky, ability or AA that provides these effects.

    It would take a high level of ineptitude to outdate something like this in my opinion. Maybe something down the road would give activate: for the next 30 seconds your healing spells cost 20% less mana. Would this devalue the original epic? Sure maybe a little bit, but it is still something that is going to be far more powerful than what can be obtained otherwise.

    The same goes for the example in vanguard with my monks epic. Is it inevitable that they design a new clicky that does % weapon damage on a cooldown? Maybe, but the monks epic would hit for a % weapon damage, 5 times per level of debuff on the mob, up to 5 levels. So essentially it did 25 attacks it once if you had a level 5 debuff. Could the devs have designed something that did maybe 3 attacks far into the future? Sure they could have absolutely, but to make an item that would do 26-30 attacks feels like it would take a level of bad design that even silius may not have been capable of.

    The point I am making is that epic weapons become outdated even with good design, just based on the fact that they are a weapon that goes into the weapon slot. It would take intentionally bad design and foresight to outdate something that was intended to be a class defining ability if it were to go into a non replacable slot. The solution is not to design a class defining ability and then make something else that would negate that completely. That seems far easier than to not make any new weapons above a 20/18 because thats the rate that the epic weapon is set at.

     

    • 9 posts
    May 4, 2017 6:59 PM PDT

    Ok i am like many who would die to work for VR / Pantheon , that being said i say why are we tryin to regulate Epic? I say why follow what everyone does. Why be same? Lets make Epic be a undertaking not of one singular soon to be creeped over but Several to be upgraded when time comes and classes have moved past point preset.. Mkae it not one item but whole set.. that can be later on.. Upgraded via turn in for new scaled version.. Full suit of armor which then powers up said such Class specific weapon within refinement of that class. 

    Think about a Breast Plate with Direlord  ability  and stats for that respective classes benefit.. but more so for fact that when full suit is equiped and you get epic weapon only upon attaining last piece will weapon open up.. and be unique to that class alone looks and skill modifier alone. Then think about say 4 expansions and few level bumps later.. turn in old armor to get new quest for new armor then using old weapon for new weapon with style change say from 2 hand slash to.... maul of devasting epicnesss!!!!.lol anywho. If VR likes my idea and wants more insight to my Krayz idea ... or what yall think  i just want this MMO to be my last. /rant off*