What level limit?
-Levels are a silly concept that have been deemed necessary in gaming for various reasons. Since this would still be EQ I doubt you could get away from levels entirely, but you could get away from the nonsense 60/65/80 cap games use and either:
-Level cap of 10. Each level up is super significant. Focus more on AAs (more below). Content gets used more because using the green/lb/blue/white/yellow/red (or whatever) con system, a "level 5 zone" would be useful for half your leveling experience. More efficient leveling zones mean more zones reserved for endgame and noncombat zones- not everywhere in the world needs to be a meatgrinder. Even better, if you start all new players in the same zone so lvl 1-2/3 would be a completely shared experience (which is beneficial socially) instead of a dozen empty newb zones- let the Newport guards handle those snakes. The close grouping would help control the gross inflation we see in SoD and other games so a finite number of level 1s could beat an endgame character.
-Level cap of 100, a nice round number as Marth mentioned. Make every X0 level a hell level followed by 9 very fast levels with a new spell (or rank, stop giving linear upgrades new names!)/ability at each level. So if someone dinged 51 they could go find a lvl 60 group and fly to 60. This clumping would have many of the benefits of a 10 cap while letting people hear that sweat skinner box ding sound.
How can we make the game more fun for non-raiders? How do we accommodate different play styles better?
-Expand on the bounty system. More than one bounty house would be great. If you're going to keep alignment (please keep alignment) then each alignment could have a bounty organization. Similar to the MQ factions now (+chaotic), but less rigid about who they talk to. That would offer great world flavor since you could, say, poison a well somewhere for the evils while the goods are sending people to cure the town.
-Class/Guild (the ones who gave you the starting tunic, not the fair weather friends) progression quests. It is lazy that guilds will teach you their secret knowledge because you killed some rats and have a few platinum. Makes people earn their hell level rewards by doing a quest. Instead of making 15 separate quest lines (developer ick) do a lot of "at level X0 guild master sends you to talk to captain soandso, just like half the other guild masters are doing." have 1-4 "captain soandsos" at each X0 level and mix and match who guild masters send people to so each class has a "unique" story line that overlaps with all others, but only partially for each. Have an item (a la monk belts/headband), or better yet a choice of 2-3 items (would you like the cleric hat, shoes, or shield? you can always trade them if you get upgrades) that gets upgraded at each step. If you want to move up this organization you're going to have to work for it!
-PVP zones that matter. Not an arena sitting empty somewhere, but a battle zone (alignment factions?) with repeatable quests that will pit you against the environment and the objectives of other players. I don't envision a big stupid brawl, but a very dangerous high risk/reward quest area for people who like that kind of thing.
-Eliminate "green" quests. Quest should always offer some reward, even if it is mere coppers and "mandatory" quests like the faction grinding in the MQ should have an endgame alternative. I cannot express in words my loathing of some dickheads sending me to kill greens and collect uncommon drops all day so they would like me when my character probably had the power to transform their entire society overnight. Oh wait, I can- it sucked and made me not want to play.
-Repeatable solo/group quests tied to instances, possibly with repeatable solo precursors so which would give 2%ers a chance to bring something to the table. "Hey guyz, while you were raiding the planes I tediously collected the 100 donkey ears needed to unlock the Crypt of Amazing Gears that everyone wants to go to but nobody wants to bother with the key, so who is coming with me? Hooray I haz friends!"
-More deity quests (more below)
Progression - what methods are most fun and how do they scale?
-End gross stat mudflation. Remember how amazing it was to get a +3 dex item in original EQ? Keep items simple with +5 or less per stat and don't hesitate to throw negatives in the mix, which bring me to stats in general...
-Rescale stats to a 100 point scale, 100 being god level strength, intellect, wisdom, etc...
-Give each base stat a clear function and advantage instead of leaning on, or even having, advanced stats/focus items.
-The "default" starting stat would be 20/25 (to leave room for negative modifiers, debuffs, and negative items) modified by race. Humans would start with 20/25 in everything with other races having balanced modifiers of +/- 10 of less (ex: ogre +10 str/sta, -5 agi/cha, -10 int). Possible class modifiers too, if possible but of +/- 5 or less.
-Items would have small stat increases to where +5 would be the best an item gives for a single stat and in total accumulating +40 of a stat would require amazing gear and sacrificing other stats (ex:+5 str arms instead of +2 to all at endgame). This makes "backgearing" interesting endgame since maybe I want those +5 Int pants from torment sometimes instead of my baller ass +3 all pants from abyss (using current zones as examples). AC, hp, and mana could still advance in the linear fashion EQ later adopted so "gear check" fights are still a thing and people can feel good about pixels.
-Buffs (which should all die in a fire and be replaced with auras to forever end buffbots and rebuffing and all that other awful shit no one likes) would cap out at around +20 total points divided (ex: Warrior aura gives +10 str/+10sta at lvl 100)
-AAs for stats would have NO CAP! ENDLESS PROGRESSION, fuck tomes! One small catch- each +str (for example) would cost N^2, where N is how many +str you have bought (starting at 1). So, +1str=1AA, +2str=1AA, +3str=4AAs, +4str=9AAs, +10str=81AAs, +21str=400AAs, +75str(godlike str while nude)=5476AAs. Plus all previous levels of course, so gaining +10 would cost 286AAs and +75 would cost, ummm, a whole whole lot.
Example of strength for a lvl 100 raid equipped human warrior: Human (+25 base) + Warrior (+5 creation) + Self Aura (+10) + Gear (~+30) + AA Str (+10 for example) = 80 Strength total.
If that person wanted to gimp themselves they could squeeze out another 10 in gear stats and if they had less than no life they could spend thousands of AAs to get another +10 to go all the way to 100. IT IS POSSIBLE!
Substories. There is one major overarching theme to the game (like Kaezul was in SoD), but other things will be long gone or forgotten. Vah quest won't be a thing anymore. Silver Crown and the like have long disbanded. Relationships built around the Kaezul struggle are largely a thing of the past. With all this - what else makes the world go round? What makes it interesting? One concept being floated at present is that it is the good guys who are the outcasts - various forms of evil-aligned groups run most things, and there's a lot of blending-in that needs to happen to get anything done if you are good-aligned. A significant thought in the game is allowing good to begin to retake some ground, through one-time quests, GM events, etc., but what else can we do here?
-Return of the true gods. It turns out the gods in SoD were shadows/echos of their true glory left behind while the true gods went off on some crazy adventure against an outside entity. The outside entity used their assault as a distraction to pierce the mortal realm and exert his influence on Dalaya. Now the Gods are back, though a few died, and new alliances have formed. Their power in there own realms is restored to its true glory, but now they must retake the mortal realm with our help. They are looking for worthy mortals who can pass their tests to join the fight against the outside entity (expansions).
-Mortals who have aligned themselves with the outside entity (not evil like player alignment evil, more nihilist) have overtaken most of Dalaya! Zones must be retaken through epic quests (one-time per zone, but have a few different ones), GM events, etc.. to retake the lands controlled by the outside entity!
Races and classes. IMO, one of the more uninteresting parts of SoD right now. I'm looking at a complete revamp - what are some of your ideas?
-Meaningful race differences. Stats as above which amount to a correctable (but not really) difference and one unique ability on par with ogre no stun for each race. NO restrictions on race/class combos. If you want to be an Ogre wizard with shit INT (which is waaaay more important now) who can't even wear some of the best gear for the class then go right ahead. mmoRPG. RPG!
-Fewer classes that follow a balance design:
-Alternatively you could keep all the classes with Rogues and Wizards occupying the DPS/DPS spot as the premiere dps who aren't good at anything else and other classes moved around accordingly. I just cut the "evil" classes because arbitrary decisions are arbitrary. Throw SHD where MNK is since using your fists to fight golems is beyond stupid, whatever.
-Columns are main role and rows are secondary roles. Classes can be balanced by row and column with Bards being a secondary at all 4 roles. For example, Pal, War, Mnk should tank about equally well and Pal, Ranger, Ench, and Bard would "heal" about equally well. This gives clear metrics for class balance debates which have been a subjective and nauseating topic with SoD thanks to dumb assholes like me.
-Pure classes (looking at you warriors and clerics) are a cancer. Having encounters/situations where one healer performs better than another (ex: hots work great on this fight because of all the moving or whatever) is one thing, but having a class be the best at a role all day every day is poor class design that has been more or less abandoned by games for a damn good reason.