Kyle “Kander” Vallee, creative director for EverQuest II, has recorded and shared the third episode of his Kander’s Candor podcast, which talks about, among other things, the viability of solo play and updates in the works for crafting and auto-attacking in the MMORPG.
On the subject of solo play (which he seems to liken to casual play), Vallee believes that players can currently move from the start of an expansion, to solo overland, to base heroic “without too much trouble.” However, he also does contend that EQII’s move away from casual gameplay was not a conscious decision and that PUGs should be a thing more often; one set of new dungeons each expansion isn’t too complex and so should be understood by PUGs.
The podcast then discussed crafting, noting that the system needs some invigoration, particularly after Domino left Daybreak. Specifics on just what will be done to achieve this weren’t elaborated upon, but the plan is to make crafting exciting again and not an afterthought. Vallee also discussed plans to buff up auto-attacking, noting that some stats are now meaningless to players, resulting in making auto-attack not worth players’ time.
You can listen to the complete podcast yourself for all the specifics, or check out this summary posted on the subreddit if you’d rather not.
