Three Big Changes to Everquest
by Loral on September 19, 2006
Today's release of the Serpent's Spine brings us three new new features, one of them to all players and two of them to those who purchased the Serpent's Spine expansion. Today we will discuss the impact of the out of combat regeneration system, the expendable alternate advancement system, and the tiered spell system.
So long have we suffered under the long regeneration time of the Everquest of old. So long have we sat and waited, surfing Allakhazam's for new mana regeneration items, that we can't even comprehend how important a change like this is.
World of Warcraft and Everquest 2 both showed how important it is to limit downtime. Both games offer fast gameplay with short periods of regeneration in between combat. Before today, Everquest had no way to add such a system without unbalancing the game. Everquest could not know when you were in battle and when you were resting. Now, however, SOE has figured out a way to track a player's in-combat and out-of-combat state to allow very high regeneration when not in battle.
For long-time EQ vets, this system must be experienced to be understood. The impact is huge. No longer must players wait after buffing classes fully buff a group. No longer will raids have to wait very long periods of time for their melee classes to regenerate endurance. No longer is clarity a requirement for any group to hunt with any efficiency.
This feature changes how we play. It is no longer imperative for a cleric to hold on to 95% of his or her mana when he or she can regenerate to full in three minutes. Mana can drain and flow quickly, allowing for a lot more action in every encounter.
There are a few complaints of this system, as there are with any big change. Necromancers and Shaman had cornered the market on quick regeneration and now some feel that all of the other classes gained this ability as well. The difference is that necromancers and shaman can still use their abilities while in combat while other classes must wait 30 seconds after a battle to begin regenerating.
Those who spent fortunes of time and money on high mana regeneration items might feel that their efforts are pointless now, but again these regeneration items and spells work while in combat. They will still speed up combat, just not as much as they did before.
Others shout that this change should have happened years ago and they're right. EQ2 and World of Warcraft both had these systems over a year ago and it took a long time for SOE to add it into Everquest. Now we have it, however, and little can be done about the past.
The most baffling complaints come from those who feel that the downtime somehow resulted in greater skill when all it really did is give us more time for Tivo. Many of these complaints come down to the idea that with the downtime change, Everquest is now a more reasonable and possibly more popular game resulting in more players that make those of us willing to suffer with lousy mechanics less special.
Of all the major changes we receive with the Serpent's Spine release, the out-of-combat regeneration feature is, by far, the biggest and best change in a long time.
The Serpent's Spine also includes a new set of expendable alternate abilities. Unlike normal AAs, high-end characters can spend three AAs to receive a one-time ability. These abilities might include damage increases, hitpoint increases, damage mitigation abilities, and other unique abilities.
While this feature does not seem monumental on the surface, consider that this is the first time in any of the big three fantasy MMOs that experience will always be useful.
Everquest had a very high amount of rewards for experience earned. 70 levels and over a thousand points worth of alternate abilities meant that only a select few would ever get to the point where experience meant nothing. Now even those few will always have a use for AAs. Unlike Warcraft, where players hit level 60 and then receive very little in return for the hunting style that got them there, Everquest players can continue to earn and use experience throughout very long careers.
The returns for experience earned always diminishes. Levels matter more than AAs, some initial AAs are far more powerful than later AAs, and some AA sets seem almost completely pointless. Now expendable AAs add a bit more return for the AAs spent, but at the cost of being temporary.
Again, this system isn't without complaints. Some feel that they will be expected to earn and use these abilities for extremely challenging encounters. Some worry that encounters will have to be tuned around those with these AAs, making it more difficult to defeat the encounters without them. These are all valid concerns, but the advantage of a limitless upper end to experience gain makes up for it.
The last big change we will discuss today is the new tiered spell system of the Serpent's Spine. Many complained about the difficulty in achieving spells in Omens of War. While players could reach level 70 simply by hunting, spells above level 68 only came from very select encounters. These spells were not tradable and the system in place with Omens meant that one would have to collect up to six runes for each level to get all of the spells of their class. In some cases, the spell most sought after was the last spell on the list.
The Serpent's Spine includes a new tiered spell system where each spell at each level can possibly have three to four tiers of power. Each tier is more powerful than the previous, so a tier 3 blast will do more damage or have a better damage to mana ratio than earlier tiers. Most of the tier 1 spells are purchasable off of vendors in the new zones. Even though a player will not have the most powerful version of a spell at each level, they will have the base spell right away.
The tiered spell system isn't an entirely ground breaking feature, but it is a strong improvement over the spell systems of the past. It gives players the chance to upgrade to new abilities quickly but still give them improvements as rewards later in their hunts.
Though seven years old, Everquest continues to evolve every year. These three changes take systems we have lived with for years and greatly improves upon them, making the game as fresh and exciting today as it was years ago. Keep an eye out for a future full review of the Serpent's Spine in the weeks to come.
Loral Ciriclight
19 September 2006
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Naladini on September 20, 2006 09:31 PM
The other major change regarding AA's is how AA XP is calculated for characters under level 70. Getting to max level then working on AA's is no longer the defacto min-max winner when it comes to improving your character.
The spell distribution system promises to be the most casual friendly system EQ has had. Not all spells have tiers, not all spells are tradeable. It will be a little bit before everything gets fully discovered and documented, but this time around, things don't seem as aribitrary as they were with OoW. The devs have been able to introduce a solid dose of common sense with how spells get flagged, and where they are discovered.
This is the most promising expansion I've seen.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on September 20, 2006 10:05 PM
Definitely increasing out-of-combat regen is a very good thing, but it's got to have a major impact on balance. Before, blowing your whole mana bar on an xp grind mob or trash mob would earn you the disdain of your group, as they sat and waited for you to med up again. Now, blast away. That's got to increase the practical DPS of the nuking classes substantially.
Comment Posted by: Richard Hinson on September 21, 2006 03:50 AM
One thing that I haven't seen reported on with regards to the change in the way AA exp is accrued.
The Vet AA: Leason of the Devoted, no longer effects AA exp.
Comment Posted by: simkin on September 21, 2006 06:06 AM
So far the zones look a lot better than previous expansions especially with regards to mob placement and exp opportunities.
I think its a shame so many people focus on getting to 75 as soon as possible and doing it in Nest or 69.1 instead of TSS zones. I've made a Drakkin alt (doesn't look so bad in game) and fully intend to level to 75 only in TSS zones.
Comment Posted by: Loral on September 21, 2006 07:31 AM
"I think its a shame so many people focus on getting to 75 as soon as possible and doing it in Nest or 69.1 instead of TSS zones. I've made a Drakkin alt (doesn't look so bad in game) and fully intend to level to 75 only in TSS zones."
The same thing happened with Omens. People all went back to Fire and Earth to level up instead of WOS, MPG, and RS. Those zones still got used, so that was good, but I'm not surprised to find people leveling to 75 in zones they already know offer excellent experience.
Let us know how the path of your Drakkin turns out!
Comment Posted by: Winyder on September 21, 2006 09:01 AM
It's not just the fact that the older zones can offer comparative XP grinding, but also that with the expansion having just come out, those people who cannot play until later in the evening find themselves unable to find a suitable camp in the new zones.
A good example was my group of 70-71 who went to Direwind to try and hunt, by the time we were able to all get together and get into the zone, there were 50+ people there...the camps which were possible were taken. We killed a few roamers, then the group broke.
Later on, when the group reformed, rather than go back into TSS, the suggestion was made to go to 69.1 hard. Since some measure of progress was wanted by everyone, and this was the best path to do so, that's where we ended up.
Once the initial rush has subsided, I believe more people will begin to move towards the TSS zones in regular groups. Most of the droppable items which have been found so far, and a lot of the quested items, are great upgrades for those who do not have an Tacvi geared guild. Sunderrock for example has quests for 240+ hp gear ( though notably without any effects ) Even my group in 69.1 last night rethought our position when we saw some of the items for the ammo slot which were linked.
Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on September 21, 2006 01:00 PM
The first group to reach level 75 on Bertoxx did it in less than a day. They used their old double exp quest reward from a couple of years ago and fought in llsalin.
Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on September 21, 2006 01:08 PM
The first group to reach 75 on Bertoxx did it in less than a day. They used their double exp bonuses from a couple of years ago (anniversary quest) and fought in Illsalin.
Comment Posted by: Scott Adams on September 21, 2006 04:01 PM
I've tried a number of times since I've gotten into EQ2 to try and play EQlive again. I just could not get into the long downtimes.
I will have to try it out again it seems! Do you have to buy the expansion to get the mana regen?
Comment Posted by: simkin on September 21, 2006 04:04 PM
You don't need the expansion, it's a global change.
Comment Posted by: Bim on September 21, 2006 04:58 PM
To Scott Adams: I wonder, when you speak of this downtime, what was your play style? As an example, I don't expect this OOC regen to have a large impact on my typical guild group as we tend to basically fight straight with no breaks, therefore having zero downtime already.
Comment Posted by: Artalen on September 21, 2006 04:59 PM
Well i like the idea of the lowered downtime but i think the costs are quite considerable.
Necros/Shaman will most definately lose alot of what remains of their "Endurance Dmg" edge. This is horrible and kinda blends all dps into 1 catagory... "DPS" rather than "Burst DPS" or "Sustained DPS". Everquest already has way too many classes to compete for group slots so havin some uniqueness in certain classes was agood thing.
Combat is bound to become really tedius and boring now in the way 2nd gen mmos made combat. Its Frantic spamming to land as many combat abilities in 1 fight (Becuase as u said, we get it all back after the fight) then do it again. I honestly prefered the slower combat speed EQ had. It does take more skill to manage mana, to know wich abilities are best for certain situations rather than just hit em all as they cool down.
Thats not to say the EQ combat system was perfect, it was old, outdated, but just removing downtime does little to impress me. Its just gonna devalue each attack and turn the pace up to a poitn where its like a job to play the game. Just like EQ2 or WoW. If im not quein up each attack ahead of time and bustin my ass im not performing well and thats horrible cause MMOs were never about that sort of frantic playstyle. It was SUPPOSED to be about strategy and Immersion. This change does nothing but hurt either of these.
Comment Posted by: Maevenn on September 21, 2006 06:37 PM
"The most baffling complaints come from those who feel that the downtime somehow resulted in greater skill when all it really did is give us more time for Tivo"
If this is the impression you got from that EQLive thread, then you didn't read very attentively.
We did NOT claim that downtime = skill. We DO claim that MANA MANAGEMENT = SKILL.
Those of us who are posting rational, thought out posts, all agree that OOC regen was needed and should not be removed.
However, it SHOULD be adjusted. (not the raid OOC regen, a 5min cooldown timer seems just right.)
Some have suggested to lengthen the non-raid cooldown timer to a minute or even to 2.5 minutes, while simultaeously reducing the time to regen to full by the same factor...so that TOTAL time would remain at 3.5 mins. This would still reduce downtime significantly, but would allow the "In Combat" effects (canni/lich, mana and hp regen buffs, gear and AAs) to remain important in grouping situations.
Another suggestion was to make it so the entire group shared teh combat state, thus preventing people from doing a OOC regen rotation, of sorts.
Only the extremists are demanding the complete removal of OOC regen, the moderates all believe OOC regen is much needed but currently a tad overpowering. It feels as if we are heralding in the era of EQ EZ Mode.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on September 21, 2006 09:02 PM
I would argue that for the "lesser geared" player, mana management meant casting 1-2 spells per fight in a quick killing group, ideally trying to maintain a reserve of mana in case of a bad pull.
The changes allow a player to throw more mana into a fight without a massive downtime penalty. This allows players to take on tougher fights without being penalized for being successful.
In my mind, thats a pretty fair trade off, especially for my measly 5k mana pool, where it wasn't about "managing mana", it was about not participating now, so you might be able to participate on the next pull.
Comment Posted by: simkin on September 22, 2006 09:54 AM
Well, so far so good. TSS has a *lot* of content for the beginning types. There are more quests than I could complete on any one character. Some rewards are so-so, some are nice grear for your level.
The Drakkin breath weapon is a 15 part quest, given every 5 levels. I just completed number 2 on my Shadow Knight and if done during the appropriate levels, you'll be gaining nice exp while you do them. These quests and explorining the new newbie zones have kept me off my main for the time being.
The downtime changes have been positive for me so far. The AA xp changes appear to be more a nerf than a benefit for lower level people to gain AA instead of rushing to 75 first. That's unfortunate.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on September 22, 2006 10:13 AM
>Another suggestion was to make it so the entire
>group shared teh combat state, thus preventing
>people from doing a OOC regen rotation, of sorts.
If the new system is not doing this now then It’s horribly flawed. It SHOULD force the combat state to the entire group, even if the member that got into combat was across the entire zone.
Comment Posted by: Treboc on September 22, 2006 10:31 AM
I tested out the new AA system on my Level 55 Paladin last night. I was only able to do it for about an hour, but what I found was interesting. When soloing in Plane of Mischief (with the help of a high level friend), I was gaining anywhere from around 8% AA exp a kill on White and Dark Blue mobs. When I was grouped with a higher level guild mate (63 druid), the experience when down to 1% a kill. So it seems that trying to PL a lower level toon through AA's won't be that effective (if they're grouped).
Comment Posted by: Naladini on September 22, 2006 11:31 AM
The problem with a shared OoC state is twofold.
1) If someone like me happens to catch on with a decently geared pickup group, the way our mana pools are balanced, I'll need to sit out more frequently than the others, or simply sit on my hands and not cast as much. Whereas, in its current state, the OoC regen helps bridge the gear gap and allows people of varying gear levels to group more efficiently.
2) Sharing the rest timer across the group creates a situation where people would simply disband from a group to rest, really doing little else than adding an unecessary annoyance factor.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on September 22, 2006 11:49 AM
>Sharing the rest timer across the group creates a
>situation where people would simply disband from a
>group to rest, really doing little else than adding
>an unecessary annoyance factor.
Every single game that implements such a combat system shares the combat state with the full group. They also may do things like "you cant join or disband while in combat state" or "if you join a group that is not OOC you get no xp from their current fight".
With all the work they went to "make sure this is not exploitable" I cant see how they didn’t think of sharing rest timers with the entire group.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on September 22, 2006 12:03 PM
Regarding my other point, perhaps they didn't feel is was necessary?
EQ has suffered from quite a gear gap over the years, and while they've taken steps to close things up a bit, the current system offers quite a bit for a player with a 5k mana pool to be able to effectively group with someone who has a 10-12k mana pool.
Comment Posted by: maevenn on September 22, 2006 01:08 PM
Here's a couple more points:
-With so much mana regen, the healer / slower / CC'er is also throwing in a lot more nukes than before, so mobs get dead faster. This is detrimental to any DoT-dependent classes, as their DoTs are doing les damage. In the EQLive thread I saw that Loral responded to this exact issue by telling groups to pull more mobs at a time...all well and good, but this leads to a different issue:
-pulling faster & more mobs at a time means your group will either be waiting for respawns or enlarging the radius of the "camp" and pulling mobs that maybe used to be part of another "camp". While the new TSS zones may have been designed with this new faster/multiple Pull Rate in mind, the older zones weren't, so they may end up supporting fewer groups, unless respawn rates get tuned to compensate. And then drop rates will need to be tuned DOWNWARDS to compensate for the faster rate that cash drops are generating plat, and named drops are coming into the world, etc. Or mobs in older zones will be tuned to be harder to kill while respawn rates are left alone...and anyone with average gear will have to work harder than they used to for teh same results as before....
One sweeping change to the Regen game mechanic, as you can see, has many consequences.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on September 22, 2006 05:33 PM
"MMOs were never about that sort of frantic playstyle. It was SUPPOSED to be about strategy and Immersion."
I agree, but for me that line was crossed way back in PoP and even more in GoD when mob DPS went through the roof. Timing became crucial: a half second delay in reacting to something could mean a wipe. Whether it was a taunt, a heal, or--perhaps the most extreme example--dealing with a charm break, you had to not only do the right thing, you had to do it fast. That's when EQ started feeling less like an online computer RPG and more like an online action game in a fantasy setting, at least to me.
After a long session of mezzing adds in Seb or (old) Hate, I'd come away feeling elated. After a long session of staring at some charmed Vxed beast, finger perched on the charm button the whole time, knowing that if I let my attention wander for even an instant it could eat my entire group, I came away feeling exhausted.
Comment Posted by: Loral on September 22, 2006 06:46 PM
"We did NOT claim that downtime = skill. We DO claim that MANA MANAGEMENT = SKILL."
Guess what, now we have to relearn our mana management skill. The skill is still needed to maximize our ability to use all the tools we have. If you're sitting at 100%, you're not using any skill. If you are sitting at about 50% consistantly throughout a hunt, you're managing your mana well. Mana management changed and now I am a lot more busy during a fight than I was - thats very good. No longer can I watch an episode of the Daily Show while keeping a group alive - now I have to work for a living.
"Another suggestion was to make it so the entire group shared teh combat state, thus preventing people from doing a OOC regen rotation, of sorts."
I believe they took this out of EQ2 when it proved to be more of a problem than a benefit.
This is a great change to Everquest and one that is long overdo.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on September 23, 2006 02:53 AM
Loral, I'd have to check since I have not played EQ2 in a while now, but what did got removed from EQ2 was the shared experience debt penalties, not the shared combat state. Last time I played, there was no longer Exp penalty sharing, BUT the combat state sharing was still there, there was no problem with that aspect of the game, the problem was with the debt sharing as the full party paid for a single idiot's mistakes.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on September 23, 2006 03:11 AM
I couldn't say for EQ2, but WoW does not have shared combat states for groups (except for raid boss encounters, to prevent a particular cheap tactic). As long as you stay our of aggro range of the mobs, you can be out of combat while your group fights.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on September 23, 2006 09:06 AM
Teremar wrote: I couldn't say for EQ2, but WoW does not have shared combat states for groups (except for raid boss encounters, to prevent a particular cheap tactic). As long as you stay our of aggro range of the mobs, you can be out of combat while your group fights.
--
very true but WoW also does alot of other stuff differently.. they have much much much faster respawn times in their zones most often as soon as your done clearing thru a area its done repopping behind you so they can deal with people getting back their mana as fast as they use it pretty much.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on September 23, 2006 11:57 AM
Absolutely. It also helps that a group would hardly ever want to sit in one place and kill stuff over and over in WoW. The kinds of quests or other tasks which call for that are typically done solo.
I mostly wanted to correct the impression given earlier that other games all shared the combat state between group members. But you bring up a good example of how regen rates at least should affect the whole design of the world. I'm glad EQ is doing something about downtime, but I hope they've really thought through all the implications, because there are an awful lot of them.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on September 23, 2006 09:55 PM
That's the good thing about rolling out a major change like this as a part of the expansion cycle, the core design of the expansion could keep this change in mind.
Comment Posted by: GreenAndMean on September 24, 2006 08:07 AM
Should every victorious encounter be equal?
With a system of insanly high out of combat regen, that is what happens -- EQ's ability to say "you just barely beat that encounter, you don't want to do it this way again, do better next time" has been significantly reduced.
By dismissing the arguement that downtime "somehow resulted in greater skill" without even addressing it, you aren't been honest. You are being rhetorical. It did take skill to efficiently defeat creatures -- and now, there is little to no point in efficiently defeating creatures. One must merely survive the battle in order for your mana pool to be full 3.5 minutes later.
I'm not saying that SOE's "inflate mana pools and mana costs and keep mana regen flat" system was wise -- but giving developers finer tools than "you lose, and are dead" to punish players is a good thing.
The change also reduced the power of regen items and regen abilities significantly. This is reflected, somewhat, in the large jump that class regen effects made in TSS spells. But necros and shamans have a good point to argue on -- those two classes have had slow casting inefficient spells to make up for the fact that their regeneration is so high.
What should, in my opinion, happen is that their in combat regen advantage should be exagerrated -- both cannabalization and lich should be made into larger effects. As an offhand suggestion -- double both effects (in both HP drained and Mana granted).
Comment Posted by: Loral on September 24, 2006 10:38 AM
I did address it.
When I'm playing now with the new regen, our whole group has to change how it plays to ensure we're being as efficient as we can. Instead of mana conservation being the primary part of efficiency, its the amount of damage we can do in one battle to ensure we're back up to the same state by the next.
It means pulling faster but not so fast that you never have any downtime state. It means blasting or casting yourself down to whatever percentage you can maintain over a longer hunt.
There are all sorts of strategies and tactics one must now take into consideration to be as efficient as possible.
Note, efficiency is NOT hanging out at 100% mana. That's just wasting what you could be regenerating.
Just because the strategy is different doesn't mean there isn't a strategy.
Comment Posted by: sabrexlanys on September 24, 2006 11:35 AM
Interesting discussion on mana. Made me recall how D&D online forces casters to ration their power across many encounters before they rest and recover. Probably a flawed system for an online game to try and mimic the pen/paper game too closely but it does show there is one game not following down the WoW/EQ/EQ2 cookie cutter encounters at a frantic pace. I no longer play EQ but do play EQ2. Sad thing about EQ2 and this sort of rapid recovery is seems to shorten timescales and make encounters in the end more black and white. Either too hard die, or repetitively too easy. I can count on 1 hand the number of nail bitting dungeon crawls in EQ2 in 70 levels. Whereas I seem to remember hundreds of closely fought battles spread over 30 mins or so where a group tried to hang on just on the edge of surviving. Some of that was down to the smoothing effect of longer mana recovery and the opportunity to make difficult decisions in balancing agro/mana/respawns/escape. The current crop of games seem to have all the allure of slot machines and about the same need for judgment and skill.
Comment Posted by: Loral on September 24, 2006 12:57 PM
Thinking back on the close nail-biting battles I had in EQ, all of them would be no different with the OOC system. Almost all of them had me going from 100% to 0% within the battle itself.
Comment Posted by: sabrexlanys on September 24, 2006 07:29 PM
I was thinking more of the times in Chardock or Seb where you are moving around timed spawns, dodging roamers etc. Someone dies and you blow half you mana on rez and rebuff. What do you do? Stay put, move on, burn the last on a roamer to get to a med position you know isnt poping soon. These sort of compromises/decisions made EQ a great game. The simplification of starting every fight at 100% diminishes it. Random things happen with bad agro, untimely deaths, forgotten roamers, bad pulls. If you wipe the state clean before every fight it makes for more boring experiences. Having said all that...I hated medding.
Comment Posted by: Baker on September 25, 2006 09:21 AM
Everyone cries about every fucking change to EverQuest. Quit bitching and quit if you don't like it! Thanks! I love the new changes. I can solo as a Rogue now!
Comment Posted by: Lorreth on September 25, 2006 12:52 PM
I am probably what most people think of as a "casual player". I can usually manage an hour or two a couple of weeknights, and maybe a longer showing on Sundays. Gearwise, it is what I have accumulated via bazaar purchases, some ornate, and (in another 30% or so xp) a few spirit armor pieces from Arcstone. I am a 67 Mage, playing with a semi steady group that has about the same level of time and gear.
We absolutely love the change.
Prior to the change, I would cast 2 or 3 spells per mob, keeping mana around 75%. Why? Because on a bad pull my pet needed to play tank, and while he's a good pet, if the mob isnt slowed he takes a butt whomping and I need the power to heal him. Now, I am comfortable burning down mana a bit more, knowing that the next time the puller does a quick potty break I'll be able to get my power back. Even better, I can live without C3, something I could never contemplate before. C3 has been a real pain to get on Povar during the times we play, and our guild is not enchanter rich (think we have one that is usually playing on an alt - its a really really small guild).
Last night the 4 of us (plus a bot) decided to try doing the arcstone cloak quest. We took down the big tree fellow, and after 2 attempts took down the very cool looking undead thing. For those of you saying there are no nail biting fights anymore, I beg to differ, that undead thing was a very very fun but hard fight for us, mostly because of all the adds. it took a lot of teamwork to pull that off, and we all felt great about it. This is the sort of thing that keeps me comming back to EQ after forays through most of whats out there on the market.
Now I just wish they hadnt nerfed the vet 2x xp aa award - or is that a bug?
Comment Posted by: Phrank on September 25, 2006 02:22 PM
Skill?? ROFLMAO there is no "skill" in EQ or any game like it.
People throw around skill to make their e-peens feel inflated. Skill is in FPS games and PvP where you have equal equipment. Not some level/equipment unbalanced PVE MOB zergfest.
Head over to something like Delta Force II and learn what skill is about. Hell even WoW PvP in it's lamest form takes more skill then EQ ever did or ever will.
Comment Posted by: Brewall on September 25, 2006 05:12 PM
An interesting thing that has come out of this expansion that SoE should take notice of is what motivates people to log in: more levels.
Unlike the last few expansions that were virtual ghost towns, these new zones are packed with players, low wait times for groups anywhere, and lot of OOC.
The biggest measure of success will be increased numbers. Everyone is reveling in increased skills, except for fizzles. As long as SoE doesn't throttle drop rates like they typically do a couple weeks after an expansion or swing a nerf at something, they could keep this momentum going.
Comment Posted by: Sunshadow on September 25, 2006 07:07 PM
Over the weekend I noticed 2 things about the new OOC regen, 1 nice, 1 not so nice. As a Necro the nice bit is as long as I remeber to sit down the OOC out regens my lich, so no more lich deaths (well minimal anyway).
The not so nice bit is groups have suddenly got blasé, I had groups on the weekend where pullers weren't given room to split, non pullers were runing out to look for mobs and pulls where happening before crowd control guidelines had been set. This caused multiple deaths and in the end the group says this mission is too hard and disbands. This sort of rubbish happened in 3 groups over the weekend. Worst grouping experiance I have had in ages.
Comment Posted by: Keisa on September 26, 2006 09:42 AM
Sunshadow said: "The not so nice bit is groups have suddenly got blasé, I had groups on the weekend where pullers weren't given room to split, non pullers were runing out to look for mobs and pulls where happening before crowd control guidelines had been set. This caused multiple deaths and in the end the group says this mission is too hard and disbands. This sort of rubbish happened in 3 groups over the weekend. Worst grouping experiance I have had in ages."
...and this is different than before TSS because?...
Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on September 26, 2006 11:52 AM
It's no easier to get 69 & 70 spells with SS. Yes, they can be researched, but the list of ingredients is long and research skill needs to be way over 400. Why not just make the Runes droppable and let the market decide who wants them badly enough to spend big?
Comment Posted by: Anthy on September 27, 2006 08:09 AM
As someone who's always advocated keeping to the hard roots of EQ and not making things pathetically easy, I still support the out of combat system. Because it doesn't really change whether things are easy or not, and downtime wasn't a real challenge or risk, it was just an annoyance. I don't understand why some people seem to think that downtime = hard.
Mana mangement is one of the few issues that is a valid concern here, but in a good group there's still a good bit of that. I'm starting to learn to work my cleric's mana properly with the new system so that I don't either run out or have to stop pulling for 1+ minutes to med. Tossing promised renewal on the tank *just* before he engages the mob, for example, allows another 20 or so seconds of ooc regen time.
And though not in the main topic, it is pretty much about the expansion: Drakkin, on the other hand, are something I have a ton of complaints about in this expansion. Not the 'zomg drakkin are overpowered' complaints. First off, Drakkin cannot use armor dyes. Well, they can, but they don't show up on their natural form. Contrary to what some might think, armor dyes work fine with the Drakkin model, as shown by anyone who's NOT a Drakkin using Drakkin illusion - their armor dyes continue to show up in Drakkin form. Drakkin are simply restricted from using armor dyes in a stupid move by SoE to force their aesthetic preferences down our throats. They say the Drakkin armor looks 'better' without armor dyes. I say we should be able to decide whether we want our Drakkin to use dyes or not, like we can with any other character. Having someone else's aesthetic preferences forced upon us is absurd, if we think the armor looks better without dyes....we won't dye it. If we thinks it looks better with them, we will.
Second big annoyance I have about the Drakkin is their animations. The artwork on the new models is excellent. They're pretty, the armor is detailed, the features are detailed...overall I love the way Drakkin look. Until they start to move. It's like they took this wonderful artwork and gave it to a team of no-talent hacks to animate. The hunched over arms-straight-at-the-sides running, the ridiculously exaggerated spell gestures (am I pitching, or casting a spell?), bards sticking their weapons through their heads (which had been mostly gotten rid of), Drakkin move horribly. Lots of games have pretty damn good animations that look fluid and natural - not retarded. Animations have nothing to do with lag or latency, and if they're an issue for video cards, then an option to enable or disable 'better' animations, a lot like the option to enable or disable emotes, would be appropriate. Why can't they put a little effort into making these excellently made models move in a manner that looks halfway natural and appropriate?
Muse Anthy Himemiya,
Bard of Azure Shadows,
Herald of Veeshan,
Dreadmistress of Lanys T`Vyl.
-Do you honestly think that we believe ourselves evil? My friend, we seek only good. It's just that our definitions don't quite match.-
Comment Posted by: Richard Hinson on September 28, 2006 11:14 AM
Loral,
Any word from the developers on why it's being reported on both the SOE EQ forums and several fan sites that AA gain was furher nerfed some 20% across the board with the patch from yesterday?
On that same note, has anyone actually seen any improvement in AA gain at any level?
I know from personal experience that my level 70 shaman is getting less than 50% of what he got per dark blue kill in WoS solo prior to the release of TSS.
Any responce from the dev's on why this expansion and the re-tool of AA's which was stated as being a boon for so called casual players is in effect a door slammed in the face of all but the top 1% would be appreciated.
Comment Posted by: YACK on September 29, 2006 02:42 PM
God dermit! Why all this talk of TSS?!?!?!?!
WHEN IS OUR NEXT EXPANSION YOU LAZY LIMA BEANS!?!?!
Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on September 29, 2006 11:07 PM
It's INSANE that level 71 - 75 can be purchased from vendors AND are being sold in Bazaar while 69 & 70 are almost impossible to get! Makes NO sense at all.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on September 30, 2006 02:17 AM
Perhaps they should create 2 lower power tiers of lvl 65-69 spells, allowing for the first tier to be vendor sold :P
Remember, the vendor sold spels are not the most powerful version of the new spells.
Comment Posted by: Skuz Bukit on September 30, 2006 05:29 AM
If they made greater & glowing tradeable that would create a situation that reduced the options to get them, plat farmers would take over the relatively few camps that are available for these & then the ONLY way to get them for many would be the bazaar, the way it is now you can go earn them for free as there is very little incentive for a plat farmer to camp them.
And as for getting 71-75 abilities/spells from vendors & not 69/70, in a huge number of cases the 71-75 abilities are superior to 69/70 abilities/spels, so the need for the greater& glowing runes is further reduced.
Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on September 30, 2006 10:28 AM
Something the early expansions had which is lacking in all of them since LDON was a semi safe, not to difficult to get to gathering spot. This made finding groups easy just by /ooc and encouraged meeting new people.
The Tunnel in E Commons, the starting cities/newbie zones, the Windmill in LOIO, CB, the dock in Oasis, KFC in S Karana, Thurg and Shadowhaven for tradeskilling, even the Nexus pre POP, etc.
As for farming runes, it's difficult to get a group to grind where they drop when there are many more rewarding items to be had doing fun quests in both PoR and SS. With flagging and factioning in addition to questing, there just isn't enough time to experience all the content.
There are no spells to replace the missing 69 & 70 spells until well into the 70's. If the farmers want to grind for dropable runes ... I will happily pay. The recipies are posted for researching these spells. They require an insane amount of time and work with all the sub combines and high research skills needed. I'd rather spend my time playing!!
Comment Posted by: Armarant on September 30, 2006 06:35 PM
All the zones above Mesa got a tweak last night, but Valdeholm, Ashengate, and Frostcrypt got the biggest changes. The intended progression of the zones has always been Vergalid -> Valdeholm -> Frostcrypt/Ashengate. Before these changes, Valdeholm was actually a bit more difficult than Frostcrypt and Ashengate. Valdeholm should be back to its intended difficulty now and fit the role of a high level single-group dungeon.
Ashengate and Frostcrypt were also in a tough situation. The average basepop NPC in those two zones were more difficult than basepop NPCs in raid zones like Demiplane of Blood, which is well above the tuning mark for those dungeons. They're meant to be top end dungeons, but before the change they were only doable by top end raiders.
If the difficulty stayed where it was, the loot that dropped there would always be worthless to anyone who could actually kill there since we can't award top end raid level loot on single groupable content. That left the zones in a no-win situation. To address this, we lowered the difficultly to be more in-line with the items that drop there (and increased the stats of the items that drop a bit to justify the difficulty of the zones). The dungeons are still the most difficult single group dungeons in the game (well above both Vergalid and Valdeholm), but they shouldn't require the absolutely best geared raid players in the game to succeed there. That being said, I am keeping an eye on the effects of these changes and will adjust things if necessary to ensure the zones fit their role as the topmost dungeons in the game.
Rashere
Comment Posted by: sabrexlanys on September 30, 2006 08:18 PM
And so the charade goes on. Loral pointed out the bleedingly obvious and SOE understands a month later but probably does only a fraction of what they should. Raiding and grouping cant mix if the premise is all raid gear must be better than all group based gear. Net effect raiders cant group for progression and groupers cant survive the top group content. QED empty zones. Every been to a London tube station and heard the PA announcement? Rashere should "Mind the gap". The gap is dangerous. Not for groupers or raiders but for SOE. Its their business which which has fallen into it.
Comment Posted by: Nolrog on October 2, 2006 12:35 PM
>>> 1) If someone like me happens to catch on with a decently geared pickup group, the way our mana pools are balanced, I'll need to sit out more frequently than the others, or simply sit on my hands and not cast as much. Whereas, in its current state, the OoC regen helps bridge the gear gap and allows people of varying gear levels to group more efficiently.
OOC was not implemented to help bridge the gear gap. It's intent is to lessen the down time, so people spend more time fighting.
>>> 2) Sharing the rest timer across the group creates a situation where people would simply disband from a group to rest, really doing little else than adding an unecessary annoyance factor.
There's no doubt that people would continue to find ways to try and outfox the system. There is really no system that they can put in place to prevent things like this. I find it sad that people would go to that extent just to game the system.
Comment Posted by: Richard Hinson on October 3, 2006 06:40 AM
Is anyone actually happy with the way SOE has re-tooled AA exp?
Comment Posted by: Theadrick on October 3, 2006 12:52 PM
"MMOs were never about that sort of frantic playstyle. It was SUPPOSED to be about strategy and Immersion"
That explains why WoW is a runaway success while EQ dies a slow, lingering death. /boggle
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 4, 2006 07:42 AM
"Is anyone actually happy with the way SOE has re-tooled AA exp?"
It's better than paying 40 AAs for one rank of an ability.
Comment Posted by: Glormane on October 4, 2006 08:54 AM
I am still getting 4 or 5 AA's in a sitting, so I am quite happy. The only complaint really we should have as players is that it wasnt done sooner, that we were able to amass tons of AA's in such a short space of time. Now that its set at a more realistic pace, it will take time to aclimatise to the change.
I wonder how the EQ community is getting used to the other change that SOE said should never been a part of the game, that of Pet Pulling.
Do we now have 2 classes that can split pull? Monks, and SK's (Maybe Necro's not sure). I wondered if this was too narrow a sphere of skill. After SoE Nerfed Monks from positions of power in the POP era are there enough now to sustain this role?
Certainly the new expansion isnt proving too much of a problem in the open zones where mobs are well spaced or pacifyable, but what about the unmezzable, unstunable mobs in Valdenholm/Frostcrypt?
I know our guild can no longer do Shyra as pet pulling cant be done any more. Whether right or wrong, SoE should have, if pet pulling was considered it an exploit, put changes in far earlier than they did in my opinion. 3 or 4 Classes made it their profession, their skill to do this, because it was in the game so long. They were invited to groups often because of this particular talent. Now this change will have implications for those classes in particular may suffer.
I also note with some gloom, that some of the loot coming out of TSS, is again trash. Direwind and Icefall are dropping under 200hp/mana/end stuff, so for many of the QVIC/MPG group trials folks, like me they are not upgrades, but they are attunable and therefore have a resale value.
The drops I've seen from Valdenholm and Frostcrypt so far are also maybe only 5hps more than what I have, with no focus' and woefully, less armour class. For an expansion where mobs are hitting harder than ever SOE's itemisation seems to be off the mark again.
Comment Posted by: Keisa on October 4, 2006 09:51 AM
Glormane: "I wonder how the EQ community is getting used to the other change that SOE said should never been a part of the game, that of Pet Pulling.
Do we now have 2 classes that can split pull? Monks, and SK's (Maybe Necro's not sure). I wondered if this was too narrow a sphere of skill. After SoE Nerfed Monks from positions of power in the POP era are there enough now to sustain this role?"
You omitted bards, and in the outdoors, rangers. Since the expansion is largely outdoors, rangers make good pullers. They may not be able to split mobs directly, but they can CC through root/kiting and keep adds occupied. Necros definitely can split just about anything.
As to Shyra, you should be easily capable of splitting Shyra without pet pulling. An SK in our guild split Shyra almost effortlessly last week. It is not that difficult.
BTW, I'm a beastlord, and I won't miss pet pulling that much.
Keisa
Comment Posted by: sunshadow on October 4, 2006 07:13 PM
While I have not yet explored TTS to any real extent, I suspect there is no upgrade to GM cultural. From what I have seen in the last week the market for cultural has basically crashed as the 200HP attunable gear is better and is mostly min LVL 66 which is basically the same as GM. Add into there the fact that there are no 71+ DON effects.
This disappoints me as it would of been nice to see a logical progession path to continue this. However after seeing some of the jewelery that can be made, I suspect there may be other Tradekill armors which can be made.
I was also under the impression before buying TSS the the RKII spells could be researched which is not the case at the moment even though the Paper to do it is dropping in game.
Comment Posted by: Richard Hinson on October 5, 2006 04:52 AM
Loral & Glormane,
It seems as if you both just missed the problem here by more than a mile.
As it is, unless someone can correct me here, it appears that players who have not previously amassed 100's of aa's are now looking at expending twice or more the effort to gain those same aa's
I'm sorry, but I missed the part where there was a logical explinasion of why the "have not's" need a further hurdle between them and the "have's".
If your arguement is that at level 75, the rate of aa gain needed to slow down or they gained them so fast as to be token in nature, fine.
Hate to tell you though, there's a lot of people that worked hard to get to level 70 with NO aa's just so that they too could get aa's at a rate that the 600+ needed for entry into a guild was at least possible in a lifetime.
You two seem to have missed the whole point. There's a LOT of people caught in the middle ground that are totally screwed.
Some one please correct me, tell me I'm wrong, show me the spread sheet of aa gain now at level 51 through 75 that shows this doesn't screw the casual player?
Comment Posted by: simkin on October 5, 2006 07:06 AM
Shameful. That sums up SOE's QA. Programmers make mistakes, I can understand that. But their jaw-drawing incompetence testing is mind boggling. Year, after year it never improves.
All hp/mana lost on items in certain zones. Tomes/Discs placed on vendors for abilities that don't exist in game. Failure to fix a quest explicity listed in the patch notes as fixed. AA exp logic still out of tune.
I'm not talking about effects that mysteriously appear due to some other code tweak. The devs put their hands on these things for the purposes of this patch and yet nothing was caught. Shameful.
As for the who AA fiasco. Shameful. Rashere has caught 3 giant bugs so far in his new "improved" code. Come on, they were obvious the minute the first player logged in and killed a mob. How can they not see this stuff?
On top of that, the logic behind it is completely flawed. Unless they raise the ZEM significantly in zones, it's not going to work as it was intented. Instead you have level 70-75 getting AA at accepted rates and anyone under that getting penalized; The opposite of what was announced. Heaven forbid if you are not the same level as someone in your group too.
Shameful.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 5, 2006 07:28 AM
The original intent, as I read it, was that level 70s should see the same general rate of AA progression that they saw before the change. Those below level 70 would receive AAs faster than previous - also at the same rate that a 70 receives AAs. Those higher than 70 would receive the same number of AAs per hour that they did at 70. All of this is relative, of course, not a set defined thing or else you would always feed on the easiest mob you could instead of trying to fight the hardest.
If it's not working as intended, we should continue to offer feedback until it is. If we're that fed up about it and are convinced SOE will not address the issue, we should quit playing and do something else with our time.
I haven't tested this at all so far. I've been working solely on levels knowing that it will probably be harder for me to get AAs at 75 than it was at 70. The same is true with levels overall.
Again we drift from offering clear descriptions of the issues and wander into the realm of "shame on SOE" talk that does little to fix anything. If you really feel that strongly, stop paying them.
Comment Posted by: simkin on October 5, 2006 07:58 AM
"Again we drift from offering clear descriptions of the issues..."
WTF? I was pretty clear. They didn't test squat, I gave plenty of examples. This last patch broke more than it fixed. AA exp is still not working as intended after 3 fixes. AA exp below level 70 and if you're not grouped with equal level toons is worse than it was not better. It's shameful.
I'm not going to quit because SOE screws up patches. But I certainly have the right to call them out on it especially when they blow smoke up peoples ass saying how things are improved, and what they fixed.
Comment Posted by: Skuz Bukit on October 5, 2006 08:38 AM
Constructive criticism "It appears to me that the recent AAXP changes are not fuctioning as described, can you please re-asses these & bring them back into line with expectations, as in a level 75 will earn aaxp much as a level 70 did prior to the changes, currently if i'm grouped with a higher level player i am recieving less aaxp than i used to at level 70"
Worthless ranting "Blah blah blah soe lies, blah blah soe sucks, blah blah wtf soe nerfed me again blah blah blah................"
Perception is everything, feedback is good, especially critical feedback, SoE devs are the ones that take the flak for all that is "wrong" with EQ simply as they are the ones that are visible, & vocal.
These guys have a passion for the game, work long hours, are understaffed, & on top of that get a lot of abuse, they need to hear what is wrong in order to fix it, that's a given, but how we as players choose to express it can be the difference in them listening to or disregarding us.
Comment Posted by: Richard Hinson on October 5, 2006 10:52 AM
Quote from Loral"If it's not working as intended, we should continue to offer feedback until it is. If we're that fed up about it and are convinced SOE will not address the issue, we should quit playing and do something else with our time."
Loral, I guess that's the $10k question. Is it working as intended?
If my level 66 druid now has to kill 2 or possibly 3 times as many of the exact same MoB now as he did a month ago, solo, in order to gain an AA and it's a bug, I need to know it's a bug and when it will be fixed. If it's the new SOP, I deserve to be told the truth so I can quit.
What we need is a break down chart of AA exp we're supposed to get per level ranked by color /con. Both grouped and solo.
This is a major issue, I don't think it's fair to do another stunt like the DoN release and MM's where the Devs said one thing at launch, then changed it, then changed it, then changed it.
Let's be given some solid numbers so we know exactly where we stand. At least that way we know if we should be sending in feedback. Or quiting.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 5, 2006 02:27 PM
And lets give solid numbers in return. If it takes three times as many kills on the same mobs at the same level, thats clearly broken. The same is true if its taking longer to get AA XP below 70. The development team clearly stated that AA experience below level 70 should be shorter than it was. However the system is different now than it was and killing harder mobs as you increase in level is still the intent.
It is possible, and this is just a theory, that the mobs you were killing were not intended to reward as much experience as they did. Now you have to kill harder mobs, but when you do so you would get more experience towards AAs than you did before.
I don't know, but I'll ask and we'll see what we hear.
By the way, expect an article on the Ashengate wars in the next couple of days.
Comment Posted by: Rihard Hinson on October 5, 2006 04:47 PM
Loral,
Okay, concrete number.
A http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=10270 a hurricane nophtan, is a level 60-61 frog in Plane of Storm.
At level 66 my Druid was prior to TSS getting 6% per kill. Never less, occationally he'd get 7%. So one can speculate the actual number was 6.1% or so.
Today, 10/05/06; same level druid, nothing changed, no changes in gear, buffs, nothing. The same toad yeilds 4% to 5%.
Note, these are solo kills. There's no question of groups, of group math, of someone higher in the group got X and I got Y, none of that.
These are as solid as it gets.
At 66th, I should at worse case see no change, as I'm 4 levels below the 70 mark that was the supposed sweet spot.
Note the mob /con'd dark blue prior to TSS, and the mob /con's dark blue now.
PoS is ancient content, there's been no mention of them nerfing the ZEM (though the rumors abound every time they release a new expansion), so there's no rational sane reason to assume they have done anything to the actual exp the mob yeilds in normal play.
The only issue here is same mob, same level, nerfed aa results.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 5, 2006 11:13 PM
Rashere had a bunch of comments on a thread about the AA Exp bugs. It's all a bit over my head at the moment but you can read them from the following links:
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=300792#M300792
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=300799#M300799
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=300802#M300802
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=300876#M300876
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=300877#M300877
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=300914#M300914
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=300928#M300928
Comment Posted by: Richard Hinson on October 6, 2006 01:37 AM
Loral,
All of those examples dance around the very basic math of one person, one kill.
The example I gave can't be simpler. If a solo person killing the exact some mob, with the exact same /con now is getting 33% less exp than they did a month ago, that's a screw.
No one seems to be posting a single example of how this new system is "better". Not one. Not even the rabid SOE fanboys that worship Absor like he's the second coming of Christ.
For some of us, soloing is the only thing we can do 90% of the time due to time restraints.
Comment Posted by: Keisa on October 6, 2006 11:13 AM
Richard,
I thought I'd make a few comments on your statements. I think you have some unrealistic expectations and some unrealized, but perfectly reasonable expectations.
By unrealistic expectations, I mean that when a system wide change is made like this, some things don't translate directly from one system to the next. You are trying to draw a direct correlation between what the old system returned and the new system returned on a specific case. Even if the new system returned lots better experience as a whole, there are almost guaranteed to be cases where it returns worse. So, if you focus on one of these cases, you will not get a favorable result.
Let me be more specific. In the old system, experience was returned solely based on the level of the mob, the ZEM, and maybe some other unknown conditions. That is a fixed yield.
Under the new system, AA experience is returned by con. All mobs within the blue range (5 levels) return the same experience, perhaps modified by ZEM.
These two values are calculated using different parameters. It is unrealistic to assume that these would calculate the same or better results under all conditions. So, taking a specific case and claiming that the current system is broken because of that cases is non-productive. It would take a much broader collection of data to be able to make the assessment that the current system does not return overall the same or better experience.
Another thing you are overlooking is the fact that the developers were specific in their statement about the system. They stated that the system would be balanced around level 70 GROUP experience. This is the approximate kill rate of level 70s killing even con mobs. That may not translate well into players using other styles of play, killing lower con mobs.
It is important to understand those distinctions before we address the issue, because we need to separate unrealistic expectations from realistic expectations.
From evaluating the system, I would classify these as unrealistic expectations:
- I want to get the same experience for killing a mob as I did before.
- I can get the same experience solo as I did before.
- 51 experience should be faster if I solo than when I did before.
Note: The above statements do not take into account the constraints the developers gave us on the system.
Realistic expectations:
- In a fast killing average 70s group, I should get as much exp as I used to.
- In a fast killing average 51s group, I should get more experience than I used to.
- Both of the two groups should gain AAs at about the same rate.
- If I solo, results may vary.
- Mass killing low end mobs will probably have a poorer return under this system.
- As the exp from a con is the same, killing the low end of that range should give the best results.
Now, I want to address your unrealized, but perfectly reasonable expectation. If you are lower than level 70, you should be able to adopt a play style that will return more AAs than you were getting prior to this change. If you are not able to do that, then the system is not working as it is designed. For instance, you might not get as much experience killing those frogs solo, but you might be able to pick another target that is easier, or duo, or group and gain more AA exp in the same period of time. If that is true, then the system fits the constraints set forth by the developers. If not, then it is broken.
If these conditions are not true, then the system is not tuned properly. That is the issue that we, as players should address with the developers. Complaining that x mob in y zone doesn't give the same experience as it did is non-productive.
Keisa
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Email Mike at mike@mikeshea.net for more questions or comments.