Sequel to SoD - Input Requested

Responding to some earlier comments in this thread, my opinions:
  • I wouldn't be even a little bit interested in this if characters were migrated over somehow (although I know this isn't likely). The most interesting part of all this would just be SoD with a clean slate.
  • Faster leveling is good, but SoD isn't that slow. Maybe 1.5x SoD rates would be good. I like the leveling process in EQ, so current SoD rates would be fine by me.
  • Keeping the level cap at a low point like 50 is better. That way you can make sure every single level is significant. This isn't a big deal to me though.
  • Solo content is bad. To me there's no point in playing EQ if I'm playing it solo, I could play any of a million MMOs to play them by myself. The forced grouping is what EQ is to me. That feeling when you get a good group grooving and making exp is 99% of the reason I play EQ. If it's soloable, people will not group because the burden of setting up a group and getting that going always makes soloing the better way to progress. I say just keep it the way it is, some classes can solo and it's miserable to do and much slower than being in a good group.
SoD already does so much stuff right I think, but I haven't played in a really long time so my memory is spotty. I guess the most important thing to me is to just have steady progression. I would like it so that loot is obtainable at appropriate levels; like leveling zones having a fair amount of level appropriate upgrades. Like I mentioned above, steady spell progression which I think SoD already does, like new spells every level instead of clumped together every 4-5 levels. Give warriors (and other melees I've never played?) low-impact clickies so they have some utility early with their gear instead of nothing until late game.

SoD already does big full group XP bonuses I think? That's good, keep it.

Someone mentioned giving classes more stuff and blurring the lines earlier in the thread, and I like that. Giving Shamans HoTs was a good idea, for example.

I don't really have much opinion on the end game. The few raids I did were always cluster fucks where I was two boxing an enchanter and a guild bard usually, and we way out-zerged all the content. Other people can speak way more competently than me on that part. I like the idea of there being raids in the game, but I don't like actually going and doing them very often. So I guess I can say having interesting 6 man content at end game is important to me.


Sorry about this mostly aimless word dump! I guess overall I liked SoD a lot, and I'll play a reboot that doesn't break the EQ formula of group-based leveling. Keep the good stuff SoD already does, make progression feel good all the way up, give me new content, and I'll happily play it!
 
Maybe do PvP kinda set-up with the factions or deitys. Quests and titles for instance being blackscale raider and takeing out high-ranking silver crown generals or breaking into vital incampments. Have real life players able to turn the tables on opposing faction and become local or international heros. Also if you pledged to certain deity can enter a instance (with other like minded or aligned peoples) to defend or attack a deitys plane. I am not saying make it PvP everywhere but just make it more intresting and I did enjoy takeing down kaezuls invadeing troops with other peoples in this land we call Dalaya.
 
The thing i wanna know is can you or have you gotten marza and zeala in on this?!?

Feel like I'm a bit late to this thread... but! Always have some ideas floating around...

Haven't read all the posts here and never cared much about lore, but these are the gameplay-ish things I would think about, off the top of my head:

* Remove buffs -- at least long-term, set-and-forget ones. Auras might be okay. Bump up base movement speeds and/or add "improved movement" as a common effect on boots. (Niche things can be on niche equipment, like levitation boots.)

* Reduce sources of waiting. A lot of the game comes down to a) waiting for things to spawn and b) waiting to be ready to fight those things. Ideally, players would have health and mana fully restored reasonably quickly outside of combat, and fights would be designed with that in mind -- "give it everything you've got" as a baseline level of challenge. And of course, instanced dungeons can be explicit crawls through set-pieces of fights and bosses rather than camps waiting on respawns and unlikely random rolls. Non-instanced/PuG content can have dynamic respawn times to alleviate crowding (assuming things aren't rethought to the point where "respawns" are no longer a thing as such). The "pulling minigame" for FDers on raids might not be worth having since that comes down to waiting around while something inexplicable happens for most people.

* Redesign classes and revamp/remake spell lists. Roles could be broadly the same, but some classes fleshed out more, particularly hybrids. Pure melees can do more interesting things via endurance-using "discipline" abilities. Healing classes could be made a bit more modern/less "stand back and click heal"-ish as well. Add some melee/touch-range spell lines, maybe some things dependent on equipped weapon types.

More drastic possibilities:
* Make farming unattractive or impossible. How much does having an economy really contribute to the game vs the cost of people farming goods and/or money? Should players be encouraged to advance via tedious farming and grinding? Does it even make sense for high-end raid characters to be able to earn cash and the most value saleable goods more easily than everyone else, really? I'll admit that there's some merit in playing the merchant and getting ahead through clever dealmaking, but that's such a rare and minor thing and not really anything to do with gameplay or game mechanics. Might be more interesting just having to earn all your equipment, i.e. have everything No Drop. Tradeskills would need a drastic rethink to work as a self-only type of deal. Could have tradeskill-specific equipment lines and progression paths which are useful from the get-go if you get into them.

* Maybe not have levels at all. The entire game can be the endgame, hunting down equipment and/or ability upgrades rather than grinding for the sake of watching numbers go up. Players can get new friends up to their level by babysitting them through some lower-tier content for a day or two (Reward structures might need to be tightened and/or randomness of loot reduced to make actually going out and clearing dungeons and whatnot worth it even if you don't get what you're looking for, or if you're doing stuff that's "beneath" you. Can do things like automatically get your choice of loot after killing certain bosses x times, or earning generic points for doing particular dungeons with a cooldown time of a few days, stuff like that.) Every PuG zone should have an adept equivalent or three. Skills (e.g. 1HSlashing, Double Attack) might need a rethink under this.

* Consider measures to address the fundamental balancing mismatch of super-scaling autoattack versus relatively static spells. With some sufficiently quick staple attacking skills, autoattack might not be necessary -- although weapons would need a pretty big rethink in that situation.

* Start everyone's stats at 0 across the board (+ whatever stat allocations they make at char creation) and make stats from gear matter more. (Mucking with base stats is eminently doable.)

Edit: * Start everyone in the same one or two zones. Having quests spread around a bunch of starting cities is dumb. Can have a nice quest hub without turning it into a travel hub like PoK.


Pretty random, haven't thought about this kind of stuff in a long while...
 
make a way to make certain buffs become passive in the right environment? RAego is activated when a complete group of players 65-50 or w/e the buff range is? Certain elements like that? Realistically we would have those soulbinded anyways right?
 
Questing in EQ sucked, and a lot of questing in shards sucked too. Not the stories - those were great. The whole "Kill stuff til stuff drops to do stuff with" was annoying. Rare drops to progress the story are annoying. Rare drops to progress your character are A O K.

I was crippled as a guild leader on shards because I wanted to spend my time grinding XP or raiding. I didn't want to do boring faction quests to progress the main story, so I didn't. This denied me direct access to yclist, to wherever that ikisith outpost was to buy class augs, etc. One of the major reasons I just stopped playing was the boring quest grind that I was going to have to do. I may be in the minority here, though, because other people had no problem doing those quests.

I really like the idea of having the whole game be endgame and having progression based only on gear or abilities. That's pretty awesome IMO. Not to mention it would save you the time of devving all of the content that's 1-60 or whatever that'll be played once by most people then never touched again.

For making non-raid content better - make items that are actually *good* obtainable from XP groups. Rare drops, ultra rare drops, whatever. Make cosmetic items more of a thing too. Illusions, etc.

Also, IMO, get rid of bind on equip, It killed the economy, it killed trading items, it killed the feeling of outgrowing an item and finally being able to sell it. I get that the game needs plat sinks, but I didn't like that method. Tunnel questing was a favorite passtime of mine in EQ.
 
In some far-off twisted way I agree with some of this (maybe that this wasn't really the reappearance that at least I was hoping for), minus the hate for Taryth, but jesus, dude, lol. I'm kinda convinced at this point that some guy in an SoD shirt murdered your whole tribe or something.
 
@Taryth, you've joked before about the idea of a "Breatharian" AA to eliminate the need for food/drink in Shards of Dalaya. Have you considered the idea of doing away with food/drink altogether for this potential sequel?

A couple more unrelated points I'd like to suggest:
  1. Give Bard NPCs functional Bard AI. On P99, for instance, Bard NPCs are capable of throwing out debuffs, snares, and nukes from the Bard class's song repertoire. However, Bard AI is inexplicably nonexistent in SoD. The closest the game has is Eniva the Troubadour, whose songs are entirely scripted and not representative of the class.
  2. Allow players to spend more time in their true form by cutting down on illusions that players "need" for procs, damage shields, etc. Many raids in SoD have about three fire elementals (tanks who need the DS) and five undead Frogloks (melees who need the lifetap proc). These illusions confer important effects for a min/max player, but they also rob us of appreciating racial diversity among the playerbase. Marthog the Shadowknight may well be a fearsome, hulking Ogre who smells of boiled Dwarf, but you'd never know it under his 4.3 robe; Rhash the Magician may well be a distinguished Erudite with a high forehead and laughably scrawny arms, but you'd never know it because he spends every single raid puttering around as a water elemental. If the effects of these illusions are absolutely necessary in a sequel, then either rebalance other buffs to pick up the slack or provide illusionless alternatives.
 
I respectfully disagree with this:

* Make farming unattractive or impossible. How much does having an economy really contribute to the game vs the cost of people farming goods and/or money? Should players be encouraged to advance via tedious farming and grinding?

Having an economy is a huge draw for me. I enjoy the mechanics very much, as it is another way besides xp grinding and raiding to accomplish things. Taking this out of the game completely would pretty much guarantee my disinterest in a new game. Farming and/or making dropped items worth something to others is a big part of tradeskilling. It's also a nice alternative to people who maybe don't have the time to raid or even group for consecutive hours on in. I don't think anyone is encouraged to advance this way as you put it. Certainly a great many people in shards avoid it altogether. Those are the ones who raid for gear, or pick up plat in their xping, and they buy from those who do farm and/or tradeskill. The synergy between the types of players enriches the game in my opinion.

Disagree with this too:

Tradeskills would need a drastic rethink to work as a self-only type of deal. Could have tradeskill-specific equipment lines and progression paths which are useful from the get-go if you get into them.

Maybe have some tradeskill self-only things to help reward people who do them, but doing away with it as part of the economy gives me the heebies. I enjoy being a tradeskiller, and that is largely where I get my enjoyment of the game. I've talked to others getting into skilling, and that too is a draw for me. I know I'm not in the majority here, but I am betting I'm not the only one who would be sad to see this go.
 
Things Shards did really well that I 100% don't want to see changed:
-XP Debt vs XP loss - debt was a way better alternative since it could be paid off with money

-No corpse runs. This did take away from the "danger" feeling of going deep into tough zones, but ultimately I think it's better this way. Not sure how you could replicate the "omfg we're in too deep" feeling that old EQ gave, but making me spend hours running back naked to get my stuff isn't it.

-Small raid sizes: It was so refreshing to come to SoD and not see 60 man zerg raids and instead seeing people use strategy to get things done. I liked this a lot.
 
100 people offering ideas 0 people offering to help.

(didnt read a damn thing in this thread just assuming)
 
I feel that progression would be much more satisfactory if every time you level a super model of your preferred sex, body type, and other miscellaneous attributes would knock on your front door to give you a high five awarding you of your accomplishment. I don't feel that this is too much to ask and should be quite easy to code it we have the ability to utilize the latest EQ engine.
 
I feel that progression would be much more satisfactory if every time you level a super model of your preferred sex, body type, and other miscellaneous attributes would knock on your front door to give you a high five awarding you of your accomplishment. I don't feel that this is too much to ask and should be quite easy to code it we have the ability to utilize the latest EQ engine.
as long as they wore a paper bag over their head with my fomelo printed out on it. otherwise what is the point in trying ?
 
For awhile, I've contemplated building a sequel to the game. Same platform (EQEmu with some modifications), but one that tracks to the EQEmu master code so our game can adapt as EQEmu does.
Is the task of merging the current client code over to eqemu master code pretty much impossible?
Also, if it was modded heavily, wouldn't upgrading to the next iteration of eqemu be nearly as painful as something like the 2.0 -> 2.5 update?
 
I'd offer to throw some time in if this ever evolved into something, and if I still have an interest in the final direction...

In general, I like the idea of a lower level cap (as in 20 or less) with huge horizontal potential. Complete class, race, and zone overhauls always perk my interest. Stats and gear should have a larger effect on players. Sanctuary on Eqemu was a great swing in this direction on some aspects.

As a story for a sequel that may be a bit more unique than good vs evil, what if the 4 Elemental (The Four) resumed their war for control? Players would be swept up in the events, and societies/zones/terrain, and practically everything could be subject to varying levels of change. The "Chaotic" guys would be those who align themselves with one of the Four, out of fear for their lives, desire for power, or simply to see the world burn. The "Lawful" path could be the outcast minority that have to live in the shadows in order to keep the effort to end the war alive. The "Neutral" path attracts bystanders, thieves, and intellectuals who are all unwilling to pledge themselves to any cause.

- Some zones could be perma controlled by a diety (lavastorm and permafrost for example)
- Some zones could be contested, and fought/quested to be either claimed by an element or cleared of all influence.
- Contested zones could have a varying levels of visual/dynamic changes when overtaken - NPC swapover, texture swaps/fog changes
- Major neutral cities are left intact due to pockets of "Lawful" in the sewers and underground tunnels that channel a shield for the whole area. The "Neutral" populace believes they are left alone as they are not aligned with any side.
 
Interesting comments. There seems to be an appetite for it, I've talked to people both in and out of game.

One of the big questions is what about SoD. This is an independent endeavor, so SoD's longevity is not directly tied to it. Yes, I'm sure it will peel off players. And others have no desire to move off of SoD. There will never be anything that works for absolutely everyone.

I've been hashing through some concepts, and Zaela of course brought up some really specific things that I tend to largely agree with. Right now, one of the things that bugs me is that the game is, for lack of a better term, linear. If you want to get raid-capable, there's a relatively straight path to making that happen. This bothers me for a number of reasons, but as Zaela mentioned, waiting around for shit forever sucks. Competition is good. Weeks/months of irritation less so. So what I'm thinking through are various ways that one might gain in power and do things. For example, leveling (which, yes, is somewhat of an artificial barrier) could be accomplished in a few ways:

  • Grinding monsters, which is the way probably 95% of people do it
  • Quests - this is better in SoD (with quests that yield actual useful exp)
  • Tradeskilling - this is a little counterintuitive in part because TSes are mind-numbingly boring right now, but to get REALLY good at it, you need to travel. Make deals. Maybe intimidate some people along the way, or apprentice with someone. Those activities can be thought of as another way of increasing your experience
I'm sure there are others, but these are easy ones. Making any of them viable methods for gaining levels would, in my opinion, make a game more fun. Play the way you like - if you like grinding, go grind. If you like challenging quests, go do that.

Skills and such, in my opinion, should be less about "hey I have swung this thing 8000 times" and more related to level, at least initially. As you begin to explore higher-tier content, you need to start building up your skills, but swinging and missing with a weapon 50 times before you hit once to me does nothing to improve skill. Rather, having to learn tactics, when to swap weapons, when to flee rather than fight, etc. are more important things to learn. So I'd like to explore ways of making lower levels less tedious, while still allowing entertaining exploration.

Classes. I've spent all weekend thinking about this, and really sort of reimagining what classes are like. I agree with people who say it sucks that you "must have X class for such a thing" - it's dumb to HAVE to choose a WAR over a PAL because some artificial reason. I'd prefer each archetype to be comparable on major issues (tankability, agro generation, damage dealing, etc.) and less class-dependent. Individual classes can have secondary characteristics that can add flavor or a different WAY of doing things, but it will be far less important to choose a WAR over a PAL. You just need a tank. You need a melee damage dealer.

Let me give a specific example. Right now, monks are the de-facto pullers. This is stupid. It also locks monks into needing to scout, stay FDed and miss parts of fights, etc. I see rogues, rangers and bards being able to all do this sort of thing in addition to monks (again, through different means, rogues specifically would get a skill called Simulacrum which I really like). This could make pulling faster and more interesting by having to coordinate between group members. This also applies to healers; clerics don't need to be THE healer.

So right now, I realigned archetypes to see how this plays out. As of today, this looks like:
  • Tanks: Warriors, SHD, paladins
  • Melee Damage: Rogue, Monk, Ranger, Bard
  • Spell Damage: Wizard, Enchanter
  • Pet: Necros, Mages, Beastlords
  • Healers: Clerics, druids, shamans
Each archetype also comes with its own benefits that apply to themselves and the group. So, while bards may use songs to accomplish their more advanced skills, the other melee classes have other mechanisms that allow them to do similar. The goal is to be able to mix and match players. Likewise, something like a tank could become more damage-focused at a cost (using a lower-AC armor that allows better movement, for example). So while you might need "a tank" in a role, it doesn't mean you only bring one tank archetype with you necessarily. Put one of your tanks into melee mode by dropping their AC and using a bigger weapon. Or bring a ranger. Or a pet class. I want there to be fewer barriers and "hard" group makeups.

This is what's rattling around in my head right now. More to come, maybe I will start a subforum.
 
I respectfully disagree with this:

* Make farming unattractive or impossible. How much does having an economy really contribute to the game vs the cost of people farming goods and/or money? Should players be encouraged to advance via tedious farming and grinding?

Having an economy is a huge draw for me. I enjoy the mechanics very much, as it is another way besides xp grinding and raiding to accomplish things. Taking this out of the game completely would pretty much guarantee my disinterest in a new game. Farming and/or making dropped items worth something to others is a big part of tradeskilling. It's also a nice alternative to people who maybe don't have the time to raid or even group for consecutive hours on in. I don't think anyone is encouraged to advance this way as you put it. Certainly a great many people in shards avoid it altogether. Those are the ones who raid for gear, or pick up plat in their xping, and they buy from those who do farm and/or tradeskill. The synergy between the types of players enriches the game in my opinion.

Disagree with this too:

Tradeskills would need a drastic rethink to work as a self-only type of deal. Could have tradeskill-specific equipment lines and progression paths which are useful from the get-go if you get into them.

Maybe have some tradeskill self-only things to help reward people who do them, but doing away with it as part of the economy gives me the heebies. I enjoy being a tradeskiller, and that is largely where I get my enjoyment of the game. I've talked to others getting into skilling, and that too is a draw for me. I know I'm not in the majority here, but I am betting I'm not the only one who would be sad to see this go.

I'm reminded of another concept I had at some point: going whole hog in the other direction and making the economy the only source of gear, per se.

Raid mobs and such would be hunted for ultra rare components and unique recipes or weapon molds and so on. There could be recipes lines that represent direct, branching upgrade paths, e.g. your Helm of Whatever could be consumed to create a Helm of Fiery Whatever or Helm of Icy Whatever, that kind of thing. Would keep things interesting and working to prevent the economy from being flooded with hand-me-downs too much.

Of course, a lot of thought would need to go into how tradeskills work and how components are acquired. Would still want to make raiding interesting enough to do, and hopefully prevent high-end guilds from just doing insular farming without engaging with the economy as a whole. Also would need to consider whether no drop things should exist, or if there should be no limit on trading and dealmaking.

edit: putting controls on how quickly pure cash can be made from mindless farming rather than trading would also be worth considering. Or more extreme things like controlling how much money exists in the world at any given time...



Mainly I don't like how raiders can get to a point where the economy is meaningless to them, and yet they are also empowered to dump the most valuable tradeable stuff into it.
 
Last edited:
And no, EQEmu and SoD are highly different. Merging them (the original goal of 3.0) is not realistic.
 
@Taryth, you've joked before about the idea of a "Breatharian" AA to eliminate the need for food/drink in Shards of Dalaya. Have you considered the idea of doing away with food/drink altogether for this potential sequel?

A couple more unrelated points I'd like to suggest:
  1. Give Bard NPCs functional Bard AI. On P99, for instance, Bard NPCs are capable of throwing out debuffs, snares, and nukes from the Bard class's song repertoire. However, Bard AI is inexplicably nonexistent in SoD. The closest the game has is Eniva the Troubadour, whose songs are entirely scripted and not representative of the class.
  2. Allow players to spend more time in their true form by cutting down on illusions that players "need" for procs, damage shields, etc. Many raids in SoD have about three fire elementals (tanks who need the DS) and five undead Frogloks (melees who need the lifetap proc). These illusions confer important effects for a min/max player, but they also rob us of appreciating racial diversity among the playerbase. Marthog the Shadowknight may well be a fearsome, hulking Ogre who smells of boiled Dwarf, but you'd never know it under his 4.3 robe; Rhash the Magician may well be a distinguished Erudite with a high forehead and laughably scrawny arms, but you'd never know it because he spends every single raid puttering around as a water elemental. If the effects of these illusions are absolutely necessary in a sequel, then either rebalance other buffs to pick up the slack or provide illusionless alternatives.

Just picking out a few random things.

I *hate* having to eat food or consume drink. That said, I think stat-bonus food/drink that are optional would be great. I would totally go breatharian.

The bard thing - this is one of the many limitations with the current system. Bard AI is definitely more challenging, but I'm guessing the base eqemu code gives us better options.

Good note on the illusion thing. I think it got out of hand to be honest. IMO, this is related to the whole buff/debuff discussion, and is worthy of discussion for sure.
 
Back
Top Bottom