The Demiplanes of Life and Decay
Now that the Thanksgiving holidays have concluded, we’ve wrapped up clearing the first tier of raids in the newest expansion, The Broken Mirror. It has become a yearly tradition for EverQuest expansions to be released shortly preceding the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday stretch, which for our guild is the most challenging time of the calendar year to manage a raid schedule. I’ve offered the suggestion to the guild that we all follow the example set forth by our Canadian members and celebrate Thanksgiving in early October. However, I believe the jury is still in deliberations regarding that topic.
It has been nice to see some long-awaited features be added to the game with the release of The Broken Mirror. Having nearly the entirety of the expansion’s quests be shared tasks amongst all group members is something I’ve personally been hoping to see implemented for years. Any incentive to group with other players is always welcome, as is the elimination of players within a group not being able to quest together due to players being at different points of progression (as seen in past expansions). Additionally, type 7 and 8 augmentations now granting up to 12 heroic points (as opposed to being capped at 8 in years past) and having more augments include multiple attributes is also very much appreciated.
That aside, the raids in The Broken Mirror have been, for the most part, fun. I understand that the developer who was the lead designer of the revamped Planes of Hate and Fear left Daybreak’s team to pursue other career opportunities prior to completing work on the zones. I also understand how resource-limited the current development team at Daybreak is. That being said, the Plane of Hate raid was rather enjoyable, though has a lot of trash mobs to clear for only 2 total raid bosses. However, the Plane of Fear events definitely had some issues when we raided it (which was on Nov. 19). I do hope that those issues can be cleaned up in the near future because a lot of players do enjoy revisiting classic content in a modern day raid environment.
The raids in the Demiplane of Life feel mostly bug-free. The difficulty tuning of its events feels right for the first tier of raids in a new expansion. I wish I could say the same about the raid events in the Demiplane of Decay, but unfortunately I can’t. I won’t get too in depth here (because the length of this post would become excessive), but both raid events, most notably the Damsel of Decay event, have their issues. I believe that some of these issues are not necessarily bugs but are more than likely oversights. For example, there are several debuffs in each raid event that persist through death. If you happen to die while affected by one of these debuffs and are resurrected, you are immediately placed in a combat state – unable to use the respite line of Endurance regeneration abilities. This can be very frustrating, especially for melee classes. The Damsel of Decay event may just be the buggiest raid event we’ve defeated in the past few years. Having a boss stand directly in front of you, with no obstructions, and not a single player in the raid being able to attack that boss due to line of sight errors is definitely a problem and needs to be corrected as soon as possible. Is this fight beatable? Yes. Is it farmable? Absolutely. Is it working? Not really. It’s in dire need of attention and there has been feedback on the official EverQuest forums describing the problems associated with this event. The event’s issues can be compensated for (which by doing so removes a lot of the finesse that we would have normally used to defeat this raid had it been working correctly), but these measures should not be viewed as the long term solution for the encounter.
Nonetheless, it’s nice to be raiding more than 7 total raid events in an expansion, and having said raid events exist in more than just a single zone. We’re currently farming the required number of keys in order to flag ourselves for the next tier of raids (which is an entirely separate discussion for another day). We are currently recruiting several needed classes with the goal of bolstering our raiding roster – click apply for more information or contact Shiea or any guild officer in game.
Inverse Logic’s first victory over Anashti Sul, Damsel of Decay
The Demiplanes of Life and Decay
Now that the Thanksgiving holidays have concluded, we’ve wrapped up clearing the first tier of raids in the newest expansion, The Broken Mirror. It has become a yearly tradition for EverQuest expansions to be released shortly preceding the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday stretch, which for our guild is the most challenging time of the calendar year to manage a raid schedule. I’ve offered the suggestion to the guild that we all follow the example set forth by our Canadian members and celebrate Thanksgiving in early October. However, I believe the jury is still in deliberations regarding that topic.
It has been nice to see some long-awaited features be added to the game with the release of The Broken Mirror. Having nearly the entirety of the expansion’s quests be shared tasks amongst all group members is something I’ve personally been hoping to see implemented for years. Any incentive to group with other players is always welcome, as is the elimination of players within a group not being able to quest together due to players being at different points of progression (as seen in past expansions). Additionally, type 7 and 8 augmentations now granting up to 12 heroic points (as opposed to being capped at 8 in years past) and having more augments include multiple attributes is also very much appreciated.
That aside, the raids in The Broken Mirror have been, for the most part, fun. I understand that the developer who was the lead designer of the revamped Planes of Hate and Fear left Daybreak’s team to pursue other career opportunities prior to completing work on the zones. I also understand how resource-limited the current development team at Daybreak is. That being said, the Plane of Hate raid was rather enjoyable, though has a lot of trash mobs to clear for only 2 total raid bosses. However, the Plane of Fear events definitely had some issues when we raided it (which was on Nov. 19). I do hope that those issues can be cleaned up in the near future because a lot of players do enjoy revisiting classic content in a modern day raid environment.
The raids in the Demiplane of Life feel mostly bug-free. The difficulty tuning of its events feels right for the first tier of raids in a new expansion. I wish I could say the same about the raid events in the Demiplane of Decay, but unfortunately I can’t. I won’t get too in depth here (because the length of this post would become excessive), but both raid events, most notably the Damsel of Decay event, have their issues. I believe that some of these issues are not necessarily bugs but are more than likely oversights. For example, there are several debuffs in each raid event that persist through death. If you happen to die while affected by one of these debuffs and are resurrected, you are immediately placed in a combat state – unable to use the respite line of Endurance regeneration abilities. This can be very frustrating, especially for melee classes. The Damsel of Decay event may just be the buggiest raid event we’ve defeated in the past few years. Having a boss stand directly in front of you, with no obstructions, and not a single player in the raid being able to attack that boss due to line of sight errors is definitely a problem and needs to be corrected as soon as possible. Is this fight beatable? Yes. Is it farmable? Absolutely. Is it working? Not really. It’s in dire need of attention and there has been feedback on the official EverQuest forums describing the problems associated with this event. The event’s issues can be compensated for (which by doing so removes a lot of the finesse that we would have normally used to defeat this raid had it been working correctly), but these measures should not be viewed as the long term solution for the encounter.
Nonetheless, it’s nice to be raiding more than 7 total raid events in an expansion, and having said raid events exist in more than just a single zone. We’re currently farming the required number of keys in order to flag ourselves for the next tier of raids (which is an entirely separate discussion for another day). We are currently recruiting several needed classes with the goal of bolstering our raiding roster – click apply for more information or contact Shiea or any guild officer in game.
Inverse Logic’s first victory over Anashti Sul, Damsel of Decay