The 2 box rule needs to go away.

[Dev-Solo]

You won't get a supreme by grouping unless it takes years.

I got my supreme by grouping on my wizard while playing another box to farm $. It let me maximize exp AND plat.

As to the larger issue of players not grouping... I think one of the biggest issues here is that the most rewarding exp/$ content is not the most challenging content. IMO, one of the most foolish changes I have ever seen to the game was the nerfing of Citadel exp and $. At the time, Citadel was the most challenging exp area in the game, and it was quite rewarding in exp and $ (although not especially moreso than other areas). To do the hardest stuff in Citadel, you needed to group, and it really encouraged unboxed grouping, because there were lots of mechanics that punished boxers. After citadel got nerfed, the most rewarding places to go for both exp and $ were easy zones. Places where boxing was easy, and you didn't even need 6 characters to do kill the hardest mobs, so any incentive people had to bring along the new guy, or not box was removed.

Citadel and OG giant fungus/caves areas *should* be the most rewarding exp/cash areas in the game because they are challenging enough that they will encourage groups of 6 unboxed players to be most effective and minimize chance of death. Instead, places like kaesora are the most rewarding places in the game, where there is no incentive to unbox, or even bring a full group.

 

[Daffie]

Incorrect. The clock is punched and Pantera's box is open. Allowing boxing at all caused those people to flock, so the exact number up to a point is pretty much irrelevent. There is no compounding because anti-social derps like Daffie are going to keep being anti-social. Personally I think three boxing is a bunch of crap that I'd never want to do, but stepping back and looking it does address, albeit poorly, some problems. Those problems would be much, much, much, much, much, much better addressed by:



All ideas which make the game more appealing to play and group and be social. Suggestions like this are not a new thing. For whatever reason players keep making them and devs keep dismissing them and server population keeps dwindling... maybe it is time to try something different?

I raid with 15-18 people 3 days a week for 5ish hours a day. I wouldn't call that anti social... Additionally, every time that I've recently offered group spots, the only people who respond are my guild (of whom I'm happy to split and group with.) The other day I couldn't even give leach spots away in ooc because no one was looking for xp. I don't know what to tell you.

If cash was anywhere near decent from grouping, I would get a bunch of people my tier and go kill shit. Trust me in that I would enjoy it much more than boxing. If your goal is to get get your supreme, as it stands now, and we all know it so don't try to make me look like the ass, the only way to farm high end charms anywhere near efficiently is solo (sometimes duo RL people.) Over half the server is raiding, or has raided, T10+ content. We all kill the same xp zones too. Let's not pretend I'm making shit up about how anti group friendly farming charms and book money happens to be.

Want people to group? It is already more effective to group for XP, but most people in the 65 game understand that it is MUCH less effective for earning PP. Change that, and people will say, "Holy shit, I get more XP and pp when I group than when I box! I like more! I'll fill out the group!" Adding more boxes to a group makes the game more anti-social not less anti-social...

 

[sabuti]

I raid with 15-18 people 3 days a week for 5ish hours a day. I wouldn't call that anti social... Additionally, every time that I've recently offered group spots, the only people who respond are my guild (of whom I'm happy to split and group with.) The other day I couldn't even give leach spots away in ooc because no one was looking for xp. I don't know what to tell you.

If cash was anywhere near decent from grouping, I would get a bunch of people my tier and go kill shit. Trust me in that I would enjoy it much more than boxing. If your goal is to get get your supreme, as it stands now, and we all know it so don't try to make me look like the ass, the only way to farm high end charms anywhere near efficiently is solo (sometimes duo RL people.) Over half the server is raiding, or has raided, T10+ content. We all kill the same xp zones too. Let's not pretend I'm making shit up about how anti group friendly farming charms and book money happens to be.

Want people to group? It is already more effective to group for XP, but most people in the 65 game understand that it is MUCH less effective for earning PP. Change that, and people will say, "Holy shit, I get more XP and pp when I group than when I box! I like more! I'll fill out the group!" Adding more boxes to a group makes the game more anti-social not less anti-social...

If you knew how to farm, played a few hours every dayish and cared even a little, you could farm a supreme in no time. I don't even know why people are bringing stuff like this and server wiping (lol wtf? Brb only ppl in favor have 225k> charms and 1 tome) up in this thread

 

[Daffie]

If you knew how to farm, played a few hours every dayish and cared even a little, you could farm a supreme in no time. I don't even know why people are bringing stuff like this and server wiping (lol wtf? Brb only ppl in favor have 225k> charms and 1 tome) up in this thread

I don't even know why people are even bring up 3 boxing because outside of cities it is stupid, and with fast camps in cities it isn't needed.

 

[sabuti]

I don't even know why people are even bring up 3 boxing because outside of cities it is stupid, and with fast camps in cities it isn't needed.

Can you give an actual reason as to why it's stupid aside from the false assumptions you've made already?

 

[Daffie]

Can you give an actual reason as to why it's stupid aside from the false assumptions you've made already?

3 boxing fills groups with boxes not RL people. That is why.

 

[sabuti]

3 boxing fills groups with boxes not RL people. That is why.

if a group doesn't want a random person to join, being able to 3 box isn't going to change that. people are going to be assholes about randoms joining their groups regardless if its one person boxing or 5 people single clienting.

Even if what you said is true, what's the problem? you're not entitled to finding a group, go solo or play p99

 

[Daffie]

Even if what you said is true, what's the problem? you're not entitled to finding a group, go solo or play p99

Go play peq or ezserver if you want to box your own groups and raids...

 

[Swiftur]

It sure would be convenient to allow 3 boxing in cities for buffs but I definitely don't want to see that become the norm for xp, 6 man and the less "Strat heavy" raiding areas of the game.

That said I would rather see something like upgraded augur buffs obtained through quests like was mentioned in the ongoing buffs thread. Because that just sounds fun! Not to mention would level the playing field for newer players joining the server who don't have X amount if retired toon and buff bot accounts to use... Plus additional content!

 

[Obscenitor]

Look. This server is dying, none of the other changes being suggested over the past few months are going to have a large enough impact on that. The only thing that would provide a massive influx of interest, would be 2.5 client and getting put on the eqemu list. So that is where the dev team's focus should be.

With that being said, raising the limit on boxing requires no effort from a coding perspective as it is merely a policy change, and would not distract the team from 2.5. This is the best option currently to keep people logged in. As it stands now, there are lots of people (myself included) that log in for an hour, can't find anything to do and don't want to spend 20 minutes buffing up a box, and then log out. None of the other suggestions in this thread address the aforementioned issue in any meaningful way without also presenting a workload distraction to the dev team.

And before someone comes in (again) and says that people will always prefer to box over bring in a guildmate/friend/random because of charm farming.. NO ONE that knows anything about farming plat will do so by sitting in an exp zone for hours.

 

[Nebi]

Look. This server is dying, none of the other changes being suggested over the past few months are going to have a large enough impact on that. The only thing that would provide a massive influx of interest, would be 2.5 client and getting put on the eqemu list. So that is where the dev team's focus should be.

With that being said, raising the limit on boxing requires no effort from a coding perspective as it is merely a policy change, and would not distract the team from 2.5. This is the best option currently to keep people logged in. As it stands now, there are lots of people (myself included) that log in for an hour, can't find anything to do and don't want to spend 20 minutes buffing up a box, and then log out. None of the other suggestions in this thread address the aforementioned issue in any meaningful way without also presenting a workload distraction to the dev team.

And before someone comes in (again) and says that people will always prefer to box over bring in a guildmate/friend/random because of charm farming.. NO ONE that knows anything about farming plat will do so by sitting in an exp zone for hours.

tell me more on how this is going to get you to log in more often.

 

[Obscenitor]

tell me more on how this is going to get you to log in more often.

Even if it only brings back me, it'd bring back more people than any suggestion you've come up with thus far.

 

[Nebi]

Even if it only brings back me, it'd bring back more people than any suggestion you've come up with thus far.

< Goon Squad > - i won you more.

 

[Obscenitor]

< Goon Squad > - i won you more.

Yes -- congrats on ruining < Goon Squad >.

 

[burt6]

Basically no one wants to box but it is pretty much what is required in order to continue to play this game because the server population is almost non-existent these days.
I would love for the devs to take proactive steps to shore up the server population but instead they seem to not even want to know what the player base wants and in some cases seem to be only interested in actively antagonizing the player base.

My poll on this topic was deleted when what we need is a new poll every freaking day to find out what people want and figure out how to give it to them so they will be excited to play the game again and get their friends to log in instead of you know everyone giving up.

 

[Daffie]

And before someone comes in (again) and says that people will always prefer to box over bring in a guildmate/friend/random because of charm farming.. NO ONE that knows anything about farming plat will do so by sitting in an exp zone for hours.

Unless you named snipe via track/invis/flop (as your own duo), or farm the the few class tome 2 droppers every few days (via small group), you are duo boxing in 'xp' type zones for vend items from trash and named. In all scenarios, keepping less RL people in group leaves more money for split...

Additionally, I find it crazy that people don't understand what the top 5-10 people on the server are going to do if 3+ boxing becomes a thing. You know these people are ultra geared, highly motivated to farm content for alts, and prefer small groups as the chance for reward is greater... Do you really think even more sub T11 raid content wont be on perma-lockdown? The net effect of this wont be good for new players or retaining vet players who dno't fall into the above category...

 

[Pecannius]

Basically no one wants to box but it is pretty much what is required in order to continue to play this game because the server population is almost non-existent these days.
I would love for the devs to take proactive steps to shore up the server population but instead they seem to not even want to know what the player base wants and in some cases seem to be only interested in actively antagonizing the player base

Can't tell if troll or not. Let them focus on 2.5 imo. That's by far the best thing they can do for server population.

So why not delete every post in this forum then? you guys are working on a major release and these suggestions just add noise to the mix? Especially since this is a policy change and requires no coding at all.

You don't think that debating a huge policy change that would change the balance of everything already implemented would distract them from 2.5? I disagree.
I do agree though that adding a forum for "Post 2.5 suggestions" makes a lot of sense. So issues like this won't be lost in the mix.

 

[DodoBot]

IMO, one of the most foolish changes I have ever seen to the game was the nerfing of Citadel exp and $. At the time, Citadel was the most challenging exp area in the game, and it was quite rewarding in exp and $ (although not especially moreso than other areas). To do the hardest stuff in Citadel, you needed to group, and it really encouraged unboxed grouping, because there were lots of mechanics that punished boxers. After citadel got nerfed, the most rewarding places to go for both exp and $ were easy zones. Places where boxing was easy, and you didn't even need 6 characters to do kill the hardest mobs, so any incentive people had to bring along the new guy, or not box was removed.

Citadel and OG giant fungus/caves areas *should* be the most rewarding exp/cash areas in the game because they are challenging enough that they will encourage groups of 6 unboxed players to be most effective and minimize chance of death. Instead, places like kaesora are the most rewarding places in the game, where there is no incentive to unbox, or even bring a full group.

Take this AND give a bump in exp/cash to certain less played six man zones, and we'd have some real incentives to group over duo box farming... That being said - 2.5 should still be the main focus atm.

 

[luciferblack]

2 box rule is fine. In my opinion maybe it should remain but not be enforced until after 2.5 comes out and we can get a surge of new players. I do think that if the rule is suspended until that time, it should be limited to 3. After 2.5 though I would like to see the 2 box limit lifted in cities so long as you are not in combat. Let people buff while 3 clients are logged in. It's really not that big of a deal.

As far as cash goes, lose the current model. Give each player in the group x amount of cash when a cash mob dies. The money gets "auto looted" to each group member. It might make more money enter the economy, but really... the economy is the least of this server's woes. Money weight is not an issue 99% of the time because monks don't care about it any more. This means that in an xp group, people in the group get a set amount of cash based on that mobs loot variable. Auto dump the money to all players in the group/raid. Then the only reason to limit people in groups is to keep drops for yourself. People can choose to do that by telling people up front that they don't get drops. Whatever... at least everyone gets some cash drops in groups. This will be especially helpful at lower levels in xp groups. This also means that if groups or members need to disband they don't need to go do a split or go without. You played, you earned, you can leave.

I often solo these days because there's just not much in the way of groups for a 55 to join. Travel continues to be annoying at best anyway. MoP should honestly be changed to a small time sink run. Lose the stupid mobs in the place and let people get to where they need to go to group without making travel such an obstacle. Being a plat donator with access to MoP at a click is pretty cool, but it's not worth potentially dying to ghosting mobs and losing buffs and more time. You'd probably keep more new players if it wasn't such a pain in the nuts to get around the world. You'd also probably have more plat donators if they knew they'd have an easy travel system. If you want to use it as an incentive, make it so donors flagged don't get aggro in MoP from the mobs there. It's not game breaking and doesn't affect game balance. It's slightly more convenient on the same level that Pocket Plane is with all the tradeskill stuff in one place.

Ikisith only exacerbates this horrible travel when you can't port there with people who already completed the Gruplok entry quests. As a new or low tier 65, you'd have a tough time completing the entry quests alone which means you're having as tough time finding groups these days. There are few or no newer 65's who could possibly solo the mobs needed to complete the Gruplok quests so they can even bind nearby or port in with a group. This is fine if you have ringers or a guild to pull you through that content, but with such a low server population there's just probably no PUGs working on those quests.

TL;DR - cash should be auto split server side in groups from a mob pool that is (pool of money) x (number of players in group), 2 boxing should remain the norm although 3 boxing for buffs in cities only while having no aggro should be fine, MoP travel sucks balls...still, Ikisith entry for Gruploks blocks out lower tier 65's who can't solo those mobs and complete the quests to actually port in with group.

 

[Masuriya]

The problem with letting people 3 box for a while and then remove it is the infinite bitching that it'll be removed after 2.5. People will SAY they won't but then there will be a whole new set of 'Not letting me 3 (or more) box is ruining the server' or whatever. I still think 3 boxing in designated areas to buff is cool but I'm very wary of allowing it elsewhere for previously mentioned reasons.