Everquest Heroes' Journey emulator

[Xenich]

Well, one thing I don't understand and honestly dislike about THJ is that there is NO death penalty or corpse run. None, nada, zilch.

It invalidates quite a few spells and abilities from various classes.

You would think that because you can have 3 classes, it wouldn't be as big of an issue for people.

[anvi]

Love this server. It's not really anything like classic EQ but it's still fun and challenging in other ways. I love it because I wanted to see all the raid content. Even after playing EQ for 26 years I still hadn't seen a lot of stuff. You can only do raid content if you have a raid and join all the gay nerds doing 5 hour raids 3 times a week. Or if you run an army of AI bots. I have done both in the past and both were a pain. So this server is nice because you can do everything in the game solo. There's one end game fight which mostly requires a duo, but the rest is soloable. So I have finally got to see everything, and without having to setup bots and gear up millions of characters.

I could have just played my own server and cheated, but there's no fun in that for me. This server is best of both worlds, lets you blast through the game but it's still a challenge.

It has something like 550 possible class combinations but in reality many of them aren't very good. They say that there's no meta and creativity will be rewarded. But it's not really true sadly. They are making an effort to make it like that, but it's not a reality yet at least. If you pick something not very good you will be weak. If you pick something powerful you will be slaughtering stuff.

My first choice had no healer but a Necro for lifetaps. It worked until you come up against Ssra, Seru, etc and then the lifetaps aren't enough. I could have overcome it with better gear but I just rerolled. There has been a huge XP boost for easter so I made lots of characters. Spell casters were weak but they boosted them recently.

There is a top 10 list of fastest Plane of Time clears. It shows the powerful meta. Melee characters are best. But it's also kinda misleading because I made some of those builds and they are huge damage but can only survive the endgame mobs if you have absolute highest end augments and stuff. And that takes a lot of time and effort / money.

Paladins are automatically overpowered. Because half of the stuff you have to fight to clear Plane of Time (the top zone for now), is ndead. And pallies basically 1 shot undead creatures, it's crazy. Even raid mobs. But to be able to tank Zeb as a Paladin is so hard. They must only be able to do it if they have millions of plat worth of augs. They also don't loot anything to get the time down. I think they also get buffs from either friends or a buffbot. That makes a big difference. So people who just pick the fastest build like currently Pal/Monk/Berserker, it is very high damage but terrible at tanking end game stuff.

It also attacks so fast that on a damage shield mob like Seru you can ************* on it fast. So you have to heal a lot which slows down the damage a lot. So basically meta chasing isn't good. They might be the fastest at X but they are not at Y and they can only do X because they are pimped/cheating.

Also anyone who comes up with a build that is super strong is likely to not tell anyone. Because stuff gets nerfed constantly. So there are probably super strong characters out there who nobody knows about.

I ended up playing a pet **** which everyone said was OP but it's nowhere near the top 10 plane of time clearers. I tried a lot of characters though and I like the **** because the pet tanks so well. I spent a fortune unbinding all its gear and giving it to a warrior/paladin that I made and the tank just wasn't as good as the pet. To achieve the same kind of tanking it required constant work with disciplines and stuff. So I went back to the pet build. It is easier to heal too because it doesn't require changing targets. Heals auto hit the correct target on this server, but on a fight like Zeb you have to change targets a lot to kill adds. And if you click a heal when you have no target then it wont cast. The pet heal will always cast no matter what. So I like the pet tanking, although a good dps character will steal aggro from it a lot. I still need to figure out what to do about that.

You can play at 1680x1050 or something which makes everything bigger. Or you can use LosslesScaling app which increases the UI size. There is also /chatfont command which boosts text size. I never went 4k screen so I do ok at 2k and larger font.

The no death penality and powerful builds does make it easy in those ways. But the game is still hard just in other ways. You can level up fast but there are bottlenecks for gear. Like everyone really needs a bunch of powerful augs and they only drop from a few difficult mobs. And even once you get strong and can beat them easily, you can only do it once per day. So getting geared up takes a lot of time and effort. A lot of people have multiple characters so they can beat these key mobs multiple times per day. But then you end up spending a lot of time and effort to gear up those characters too.

I've been making constant new characters but have started focusing on one guy who is close to top end gear. But still have a lot to do with him and I still get owned on the last boss in the game. I beat it once with a partner but then tried again and failed 5 times in a row with the same partner. There is like entry level gear which is fine for all the basic dungeons. Then good/average gear which is fine for most raid content. But then the harder raid content needs a full set of great gear which is a whole new set. And then top bosses require a bunch of specialist gear. You can either buy the gear or get it yourself but either way it takes a lot of time to get it all. Even playing it regularly for several months, I still have more to get.

I've enjoyed it a lot though, trying various builds and then taking a few of them all the way and trying to pump them as much as I can. I am really looking forward to the next expansion too, I don't know it much and it's going to be really challenging.

[Kalarion]

There's a lot there I agree with, but a lot I don't.

Melee per se are not overpowered. Neither are pets, neither are casters. What's powerful is that you get all the benefits from each of those. What's overpowered is probably some combination of self-heal, tanking/melee power, and debuffing. See Tweed, above. He probably won't be on the top 10 list for Time clears but who cares? He makes mincemeat of everything.

I don't think anyone would call my being SHD/DRU/MNK OP but it's a lot of fun and it can deal with most things. The only time I run into problems at this point is when I'm fighting mobs that have high magic/fire resist... which is like 90% of raid mobs it seems. Thankfully I have Tweed around for Malo and Tash

[asf]

tldr

[anvi]

There's a lot there I agree with, but a lot I don't.

Melee per se are not overpowered. Neither are pets, neither are casters. What's powerful is that you get all the benefits from each of those. What's overpowered is probably some combination of self-heal, tanking/melee power, and debuffing. See Tweed, above. He probably won't be on the top 10 list for Time clears but who cares? He makes mincemeat of everything.

I don't think anyone would call my being SHD/DRU/MNK OP but it's a lot of fun and it can deal with most things. The only time I run into problems at this point is when I'm fighting mobs that have high magic/fire resist... which is like 90% of raid mobs it seems. Thankfully I have Tweed around for Malo and Tash

The melee builds can do 30k dps, some even do 40k dps but that's probably only when nothing is on cooldown. My pet **** is more like 5-8k dps. I didn't even know how low it was until I grouped with a Pally and he was one shotting stuff. One shotting all the undead trash mobs in PoTime is really nice, but even on Zeb, if he spawns an undead ally the Pally can killed it in <5 seconds. They take me 2 minutes to kill.

I think against non undead there are some super strong builds. Beastlord gets bloodlust which is crazy if you combine it with a Warrior or Monk or something that can do a lot of weapon damage and procs. But all the top 10 are melee builds, War/Pal/Monk, War/Bst/Monk, Pal/Monk/Berserker, War/monk/rog, etc. The latest patch nerfed a lot of them and the bunny statuettes boosted casters so the latest top 10 has some casters in.

I was annoyed at my dps after learning how far off I was. But I like how the pet tanks so well. Some people need help even on the PoTime bosses which I have no problem with. I can kill everything in the game really easily, except Zeb. Seru takes me 5-10 minutes but he is pretty easy. I guess my build is strong and tanky just low dps. I should probably be happy with that seeing as people struggle with some earlier stuff. I swapped Nec for Bard which I prefer. The rune songs are great. If I just keep spamming heal I can heal the pet through anything Zeb does. The problem is I hardly do any damage so I run out of steam after 20 minutes of fighting or whatever. But with a dps partner it's easy.

[anvi]

I saw this one build which was super duper broken. But I didn't bother making it because it will probably get nerfed and it sounded hard to play. People take about 20 minutes to do PoTime and this build could do it in about 2 minutes lol. But you basically pull the entire zone at once and then use an ability which triggers off multiple mobs so you can gank everything.

The class combos are never how I expect. Like some strong builds have no healer at all, they just survive from lifetap procs on weapons. Also I figured there is overlap with a lot of classes but apparently not. Like Dru+Ranger go well. Especially with a rogue. Warrior + Pally goes well. The most fun I had was Wizard Bard Ench. Pull an entire zone and click the Dopple button and a nuclear bomb goes off.

[anvi]

There's a lot there I agree with, but a lot I don't.

Melee per se are not overpowered. Neither are pets, neither are casters. What's powerful is that you get all the benefits from each of those. What's overpowered is probably some combination of self-heal, tanking/melee power, and debuffing. See Tweed, above. He probably won't be on the top 10 list for Time clears but who cares? He makes mincemeat of everything.

I don't think anyone would call my being SHD/DRU/MNK OP but it's a lot of fun and it can deal with most things. The only time I run into problems at this point is when I'm fighting mobs that have high magic/fire resist... which is like 90% of raid mobs it seems. Thankfully I have Tweed around for Malo and Tash

There is a weapon that procs tash which you can give to your pets. Pretty nifty. The magic resist raid mobs are scary though. My first character was a Ber/Nec/Brd. I loved it until I reached Ssra and Seru. I rerolled at that point although I didn't know how bad my gear was. With proper gear that character would have been good.

[Kalarion]

@Tweed I'm back, fence repair complete.

@asf I got a staff for you.

@Xenich It's mostly some 50-60 spells and a couple pieces of gear, I can hand them off to you anytime today.

[asf]

sell it, i got the staff also

[Xenich]

@Tweed I'm back, fence repair complete.

@asf I got a staff for you.

@Xenich It's mostly some 50-60 spells and a couple pieces of gear, I can hand them off to you anytime today.

Cool thanks. Have you messed with the parcel system? Might make it easier to pass things to others.

[Tweed]

I dunno what the meta is, but I managed to do pretty well with Warrior/Shaman/Chanter. There's a few gaps in my kit, but my damage output and overall survivability is insane and even after my flimsy groupmates are dead I'm usually the last man standing.

[Ranselknulf]

This server is basically Diablo style game play in an EQ skin.

Entertaining, but I doubt it has longer term challenges.

[Tweed]

This server is basically Diablo style game play in an EQ skin.

Entertaining, but I doubt it has longer term challenges.

This is not a standard server, this is much closer to D2 than EQ, treat it as such.

[Ranselknulf]

It is annoying having to level up weapon skills for this server.

You progress so fast. It really should embrace its Diablo style and just make weapons usable at full skill if you can equip it.

[Tweed]

It is annoying having to level up weapon skills for this server.

You progress so fast. It really should embrace its Diablo style and just make weapons usable at full skill if you can equip it.

Weapon skill ups happen fast enough. Plus, I think it's that way because of the mulitclass system. You technically have every skill, but ones you can't actually use are listed 0/0 or 1/0. I can use tracking, but I can never increase it so I can only get a small list of things close to me so it isn't all that helpful. One major difference in this server compared to normal EQ though is stopping to level up AAs. You'll want to grind AAs at about level 56 or so and keep that up for a long, long time. AAs are what make the biggest difference in survival and power here. I'm still doing Dragon Necropolis after all this time and probably will be for some time yet before I ever reach 65 even though Kal and I have opened up PoP.

I'm so glad I took chanter now. I hardly ever need to mez and most things can't be mezzed right now because I need PoP spells, but the AAs are outrageous. Doppelganger gives me clone swarms with all of my stats, skills, and spells. So that's three more of me attacking, DoTing, and evening healing me. Best of all I can use it every minute because I maxed the other AA that drops the timer down. Chanters also get a load of survival-based AAs. My only real problem is that I can't hold aggo, even as a warrior.

[rusty_shackleford]

I'd be interested in trying a more non-custom server that has dual-classing

[Nooneatall]

Anyone who has played this how does this compare to the WOW solo experience? I tried that but got kind of bored due to the structure of crafting where you end up having to walk for minutes to get all the mats and stuff. I really like the idea of doing a tedious grind where I make all my own equipment solo.

[Xenich]

Well, looks like THJ is being sued by Daybreak. At first I thought it odd, considering they allow P99 and didn't directly go after Quarm. Then I found out that THJ implemented a donation process in game that was related to gameplay in some form.

Now on that one, well... yeah... that is a bit hard to argue I think as it is an in game monetization process. I think they will have a hard time defending that.

What do you think Rusty? Thoughts?

[Tweed]

Well, looks like THJ is being sued by Daybreak. At first I thought it odd, considering they allow P99 and didn't directly go after Quarm. Then I found out that THJ implemented a donation process in game that was related to gameplay in some form.

Now on that one, well... yeah... that is a bit hard to argue I think as it is an in game monetization process. I think they will have a hard time defending that.

What do you think Rusty? Thoughts?

The only reason Dey'break would give a **** is if it they think it might be hurting their profits.

[Xenich]

Well, looks like THJ is being sued by Daybreak. At first I thought it odd, considering they allow P99 and didn't directly go after Quarm. Then I found out that THJ implemented a donation process in game that was related to gameplay in some form.

Now on that one, well... yeah... that is a bit hard to argue I think as it is an in game monetization process. I think they will have a hard time defending that.

What do you think Rusty? Thoughts?

The only reason Dey'break would give a **** is if it they think it might be hurting their profits.

Yeah, but I don't think it is, even with them having a donation scheme connected to game play. Most of the people I see on there despise the live servers in all forms and won't play them, even if EMUs were not available.

Besides, the donation thing they have I think is just that it gives off global buffs. Honestly, I think they need to get rid of the buffs anyway as it kind of conflicts with many classes and their benefits.

[Tweed]

Well, looks like THJ is being sued by Daybreak. At first I thought it odd, considering they allow P99 and didn't directly go after Quarm. Then I found out that THJ implemented a donation process in game that was related to gameplay in some form.

Now on that one, well... yeah... that is a bit hard to argue I think as it is an in game monetization process. I think they will have a hard time defending that.

What do you think Rusty? Thoughts?

The only reason Dey'break would give a **** is if it they think it might be hurting their profits.

Yeah, but I don't think it is, even with them having a donation scheme connected to game play. Most of the people I see on there despise the live servers in all forms and won't play them, even if EMUs were not available.

Besides, the donation thing they have I think is just that it gives off global buffs. Honestly, I think they need to get rid of the buffs anyway as it kind of conflicts with many classes and their benefits.

As far as I know the global buffs are powered by in-game currency which is only gained randomly by killing ****, not microtransactions.

[Xenich]

The only reason Dey'break would give a **** is if it they think it might be hurting their profits.

Yeah, but I don't think it is, even with them having a donation scheme connected to game play. Most of the people I see on there despise the live servers in all forms and won't play them, even if EMUs were not available.

Besides, the donation thing they have I think is just that it gives off global buffs. Honestly, I think they need to get rid of the buffs anyway as it kind of conflicts with many classes and their benefits.

As far as I know the global buffs are powered by in-game currency which is only gained randomly by killing ****, not microtransactions.

Ah, ok... I got false info then. So how do they process their donations? Is it just a basic donate like most of the private servers are?

[rusty_shackleford]

What do you think Rusty? Thoughts?

Private servers are completely legal but the people running them don't have the means to fend off a lawsuit.

That is, assuming they're using a reverse engineered server emulator.
Distributing the client etc., can be copyright infringement.

[Tweed]

Yeah, but I don't think it is, even with them having a donation scheme connected to game play. Most of the people I see on there despise the live servers in all forms and won't play them, even if EMUs were not available.

Besides, the donation thing they have I think is just that it gives off global buffs. Honestly, I think they need to get rid of the buffs anyway as it kind of conflicts with many classes and their benefits.

As far as I know the global buffs are powered by in-game currency which is only gained randomly by killing ****, not microtransactions.

Ah, ok... I got false info then. So how do they process their donations? Is it just a basic donate like most of the private servers are?

Donations are done through ko-fi so I assume so.

[Tweed]

What do you think Rusty? Thoughts?

Private servers are completely legal but the people running them don't have the means to fend off a lawsuit.

That is, assuming they're using a reverse engineered server emulator.
Distributing the client etc., can be copyright infringement.

Yeah, but note they haven't bothered going after the dozen other servers including Quarm which also uses custom code. They've singled out the most popular, and growing emulated shard.

[rusty_shackleford]

What do you think Rusty? Thoughts?

Private servers are completely legal but the people running them don't have the means to fend off a lawsuit.

That is, assuming they're using a reverse engineered server emulator.
Distributing the client etc., can be copyright infringement.

Yeah, but note they haven't bothered going after the dozen other servers including Quarm which also uses custom code. They've singled out the most popular, and growing emulated shard.

It's possible they're doing something illegal. I don't know the specifics.
But merely taking money for the server, monetization or donations, would not be illegal. Server emulators are completely legal, there is no gray area where you have to not take money.

[Xenich]

What do you think Rusty? Thoughts?

Private servers are completely legal but the people running them don't have the means to fend off a lawsuit.

That is, assuming they're using a reverse engineered server emulator.
Distributing the client etc., can be copyright infringement.

Isn't there precedent on this already that should cause this to be dismissed rather early?

[rusty_shackleford]

What do you think Rusty? Thoughts?

Private servers are completely legal but the people running them don't have the means to fend off a lawsuit.

That is, assuming they're using a reverse engineered server emulator.
Distributing the client etc., can be copyright infringement.

Isn't there precedent on this already that should cause this to be dismissed rather early?

It's possible, but they likely won't even try to fight it. It's easier to just give in to their demands because they don't have the means.

[rusty_shackleford]

It's possible they're doing something illegal. I don't know the specifics

You could contrast this with the one switch emulator that was distributing copyrighted stuff in their discord like *******.

[Xenich]

It's possible they're doing something illegal. I don't know the specifics

You could contrast this with the one switch emulator that was distributing copyrighted stuff in their discord like *******.

Well...

The install process has you use the steam client to download a build and then it patches that. Could that be an issue? I mean technically, all they are doing is using the free client available from steam.

So I am not sure if that is a violation on that part.