Kimberlite wrote on Jun 13
th, 2013 at 4:01pm:
From 2008 through 2012, most of the existing raids in the game were relevant, and were worth running. People ran DQ, Piker's Fate, Shroud, Hound, ToD, VoD, and even the occassional Titan. There was always at least one raid lfm up during peak hours, sometimes a half dozen.
MoTU outright killed most of the older raids, and U17 left the game with 2 end-game raids. I don't care too much about raiding, but there are only a handful of existing raid items in game that are going to be worth getting once level cap hits 28. End game was definitely raiding and epic in 2009-2012.
Now? After Shadowfail drops, who is even going to run the two remaining raids? How much level 28 content is going to be in the game - remember the "more than nine quests" quote about Shadowfail? Apart from absurdly rare drops like the Seal of DunRobar, who will run level 21-23 content at cap?
I agree with you 100%. The death of the Eberron Epics with MoTU was a nightmare for end game. There were 3 main reasons for that:
1. All but a handful of raid gear no longer best or second best in slot. Some of the most sought loot became available in 6 man quests(example: +3/+4 tomes). Many players ran raids just for 20th run chances at a +4 tome.
2. The level cap bump to 25. The single largest cap raise to date. Anytime this happens there is a void in the content at the top. It feels like there is nothing to do. There was as similar feel when the cap went from 16 to 20 and VoN, DQ, Titan, and Reaver's fate became meh, but VoN and DQ quickly became Epic and Reaver's still had the benefit of being fast and easy. A great social raid. Only Titan was left behind. The addition of ToD more than offset that.
At MoTU, we lost 50 some quests and all the raids except Shroud and LoB in terms of usable gear/reasons to run. Maybe eVoN was still relevant for the red scales and the SoS. All they gave us was 14 epic quests and a raid to replace it. A year later they have added 18 or so more quests and another raid, but it's still not quite where it was before MoTU.
3. They changed the loot mechanic such that the older gear is actually harder to get than new loot-gen or 6 man named items. And less powerful. Who wants to bother with DT armor, seal/shard/scroll epic items, Eberron Red Armor, or LoB weapons? It takes 4 times as long to build and is worth less than most EN items in GH walkups and flagging quests.
Level cap raises are probably the hardest thing to do and maintain game balance.
In the first 3 years the game was out, the level cap went up slowly. By 2 levels at a time. Content stayed up with the increase and the overall change was small enough, slow enough that content stayed relevant for longer. Going from level 20 in May of 2012 to level 28 in Sept 2013 is a huge leap. The content is lagging, the loot is lagging, and as a result, the end game feels missing or disconnected.
To fix the problem they should do something like:
1. Make seals/shards unbound. This will make the loot effort more on par with the other epic gear.
2. Update Chrono, eVon, eDQ, eLoB, and eMA to be level 25+ instead of level 20+. Revise the loot to have +7 and +8 stats or +2/+3 exceptionals and +20 skills etc. Give them a power boost. Make that loot relevant again. Move eVon 1-5 and eDesert epics to level 25-27 to help filling the leveling gap. Leave Fens, House P, House D epics where they are as 20-22 "leveling" epics.
3. Have some new content ready to drop quickly to give some end game fun. A raise to 28 has a risk of invalidating most of the MoTU quests and gear and leaving you with just CiTW gear, FoT gear, eGH gear, and Shadowfell gear as your only viable gear options.
Sure I want NEW content, but making the old content worth running is also a good way to reestablish the end game. Maybe do both at the same time.
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