Was posted a few weeks ago, but I missed it due to work.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=128186

Greetings,

At the beginning of the year, I mentioned that changes would be happening with the correspondent program. The changes are close on the horizon.
The existing correspondent program and the current community leader group (from previous summits) will be phased out. Instead, I will be implementing a new EQ Community Leader Group. The new group will include some of the individuals from the previous groups but not everyone. Others who may not belong to either group will also be invited to join it. We will eventually end up with multiple representatives for each class/area. This group will continue to grow as needed.

The EQ Community Leader group has similarities of its predecessors but will take the community/development communication process up to new levels. With this new group, individuals selected to take part will represent the community while communicating to the EQ Development and Community teams. They will not only represent a class but they will be able to offer feedback on other classes as well and other topics. In turn, we will be able to share ideas and changes planned for the future before the reach the "larger scale", "in process" stage or "announced" stages.
In addition, the EQ Community Leaders will collect feedback from the various areas of the forums in additional to external sites and share that feedback with us. So, expect to see new faces asking you for your feedback soon!

As we form this program, I will be continuously monitoring it to make adjustments as needed.

Thank you!


So basically after 2-3 months she decided the best way to fix the program was to fire everyone, heh.

hah! sounds like you got out at a good time! But, really a good change is to include others point of view alot more often. That was the thing about the class correspondent program, often it favored the high end crowd. There was not as much feedback from casual players. Alot of their issues were never addressed, or were addressed when those issues involved alot of the high end crowd. That might a good suggestion for that program as well, to include some casual players as community leaders for advice.

there is a problem not having a high level representative, tho. no offense meant, fenier, but it limits the reps ability to accurately know the state of the class in current raid content.

druid is a great example of this problem. a level 80 druid with all spells doing content at the anguish/demi/por level may not see the weaknesses in our dps and healing that occurs in solteris/sof content.

I think you got Fen confused with me there Aelf. And I most certainly agree there should be high level representation, but, I am also advocating that lower levels, should also be represented, from if there are still any of the 1-50 crowd, 51-60 crowd, 61-65 crowd and so on, all the way to more max levels, aa levels and on.

A good example would be Gates of Discord. While for all the problems that particular expansion brought to everybody, the casual viewpoint was often overlooked, or not even looked at. So what were the higher end folks, since it was a higher end expansion, but, in the more casual frame? Besides the obvious bugs like Natimbi z axis warping problems, Qinimi issues, Riwwi issues, Ferubi, Barindu issues. Chromatic resists were one, very overlooked in the casual crowd.

With the gear available to high end casual gamers, they were basically wearing what cultural was available at the time, with odds and ends of old planar, Thurgadin, Skyshrine, ornate, Cazic Thule loots, Coldain prayer Shawls and heiro cloaks, epic 1.0's it was fairly difficult to reach survivable resists, as well as the hit points, to counter effects like chaos claws in it's original format. Fighting a Noc originally was like trying to exp off Venril Sathir, minus the lifetap. It just wasn't happening.

So, What happened? The same thing to the Plane of time guilds trying to tackle Ikky, Uqua and so on, just with the base mob populations of natimbi, Qin, barindu, Riwwi. The bad part was there was abosolutely nothing to gain for it! While there would have certainly have been good gear upgrades to the casual crowd in the sewers and so on, it just was not worth the hassle, so, they went right back to Pop, Ldon getting the same stuff, and nothing to upgrade to.

The issue then was a typical Time raider had access to things like 30/26 duel wielding weapons, casual players options were epic 1.0s and copper hammers of striking, typically in the 13/21 range, they just could not handle Gates of Discord groupwise, and it was not their fault, they had been poorly itemized all the way through.

Not to mention they had to bring at least one cleric and possibly a backup resser just to attempt to do things in that expansion. Being a druid as my main at the time, main healing, and if someone died, and there was no resser, that was just an utter waste of time, and a brutal corpse run on top of it all. But, then everyone had that corpse run.

So, whining about our issues, the typical response was go gear up, you are not ready for that yet. My response gear up off what? I had already been using most of my equipment for years, and there was nothing to upgrade to.

i'd agree with you, esp with itemization.

Not to be rude, but are you guys really moaning about itemization...in reference to Gates of Discord?

Not to be rude, but are you guys really moaning about itemization...in reference to Gates of Discord?

Nope. They are complaining about how a particular blind spot of the developers (listening only to high end raiders) caused the disaster of the Gates of Discord expansion where nobody but the high end guilds could even begin to progress.

A similar problem is cropping up now with the druids where for the high end raiding, heal oriented druids things may not be too bad. Unfortunately the less advanced druids are not so lucky and suffer severely from limits imposed on them to facilitate raids (e.g. the refusal to combine some of our debuffs because it would hamper raid desirability. Never minds that it totally destroys -group- desirability of druids and still does not exactly make druids wanted in raids if a cleric or shaman can be found instead).

It is a difficult balancing act for the developers to be sure, in part because the solo, group and raid game have diverged so much over the years that the game can not be brought into one line anymore.


Eri

actually, i think 180 degrees from that, eri.
i think the casual raider/grouper is better off than the high end druid raider at this point. spells and abilities being gotten now may work decent in demi and por now, but it sucks in current content (say tss to some degree and up)

What I wouldn't give to have had something like Adrenaline Surge, Survival of the Fittest and Convergence of Spirits back in PoP and through out heh :ohwell:

actually, i think 180 degrees from that, eri.
i think the casual raider/grouper is better off than the high end druid raider at this point. spells and abilities being gotten now may work decent in demi and por now, but it sucks in current content (say tss to some degree and up)

I do not think I entirely understand what you mean.

Are you saying that the new expansion does not encourage groups to bring druids with them because their new abilities do not measure up? Because that was what I was trying to say.
Or did you mean that it is even worse for raids in those new zones?


Eri

Quote"Not to be rude, but are you guys really moaning about itemization...in reference to Gates of Discord?"

I don't consider it rude. I am merely using an example, of major oversights resulted in an utterly useless expansion for a particular demographic. While there were other problems that needed to be addressed with the high end raiders, there were also huge margins needed to have been addressed at the lower end as well.

qoute"Nope. They are complaining about how a particular blind spot of the developers (listening only to high end raiders) caused the disaster of the Gates of Discord expansion where nobody but the high end guilds could even begin to progress."

Yes and no. Just merely advocating balance here, feedback from high end raiders, and from lower end grouping and things. There was/probably still is, busted areas that could use some attention throughout the game. Some could be itemization, some spells and abilitities, content issues, general bugs and gameplay issues at all levels of the game. So, while things like Vex Thall, Plane of time, Anguish, were not live and had the blocking mechanic, halting natural progression, I am advocating for higher end feedback as well, as often there are broken spawns and mechanics that need to be addressed, just from all over the game.

Or did you mean that it is even worse for raids in those new zones?
yes.

Itemization still sucks.

Every time I see an item without a focus effect, I pretty much don't even bother to look at the stats. Especially if it comes off a boss in a raid, I'm scratching my head going, "WTF were they thinking?".

We are casters. While HP still is very important, our power comes from spells. But SOE doesn't seem to get that.

Hah! My ranger had the fun focus effects of sharpshooting on ranged items that were not bows! Focus effects are a serious problem, at all levels and playstyle spectrums, that is a very good point. Why drop a good focus for a few hit points/ac, mana, stats or whatever, if, a player was actually going to lose effiency?

Just like removing a improved healing focus slot for a druid and expecting them to be as effienct with a couple extra hitpoints or whatever. It gets to be a bit of a balancing act, and while gear selection is good, figuratively speaking, no one likes be stuck with a certain item for a few years or so, just because of a good focus effect or ability(Wizzie clicky Pop pants comes to mind, Blade of Carnage, etc) while watching what could be excellent upgrades, but, minus the crucial focus or ability, rot away or remain unused.

no one likes be stuck with a certain item for a few years or so, just because of a good focus effect or ability(Wizzie clicky Pop pants comes to mind, Blade of Carnage, etc) while watching what could be excellent upgrades, but, minus the crucial focus or ability, rot away or remain unused.

So so true! I was really looking forward to the new Type-3 augments, hearing they were going to deal with focus-effects, etc. However, it now seems they have created spell-specific focii: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?&topic_id=128803

Of course, these become useless with new expansions, but I assume they will create more for each expansion. I really wanted Extended Range 7, etc ;)