Test Update 12/06/2013

Discussion in 'Test Update Notes and Bug Roundup' started by KevinMcP, Dec 6, 2013.

  1. Idee New Member

    I have opened tickets and reported zone disruptions, but pretty much the answer has always been they can't do anything unless they catch the offenders red-handed. So, instead of banning the ones who are the offenders, they come up with this. Having spent most of the last 3 expansions solo kiting I guess my time in EQ is drawing to an end.
    The zones that will be viable for solo kiting will be either taken over by beamers or crowded by other solo kiters, it's just not worth it anymore. I have played for many years but I guess all good things must come to an end.
  2. Piestro Augur

    Hey folks,

    I've just returned from a meeting with the systems team. After reading your feedback, and discussing the matter internally amongst themselves , the Dev team has decided to revert the summoning changes. They're looking at some different ways to address these issues including code solutions, and will revisit the matter at a later date. The summoning changes will not be included in the patch scheduled for tomorrow. I'll have notification up for the patch in the near future as well.
    Zaph, Daislet, Yinla and 13 others like this.
  3. Falos Augur


    Sounds good, I'm glad they changed their mind on the solution that hurt a lot of other classes. That being said, i also sincerely hope mage ae's are not nerfed by all the people screaming for that particular nerf, I don't feel that is the answer either.
  4. Hiladdar Augur

    Beam DPS spells were introduced into the game during DoDH. If I am correct, ranger, wizards, and magicians got them initially. At that time, all beam DPS spells did not have any limit on the number of targets the spell would hit, provided it was within the cone.

    The number of targets hit by beam DPS spells was limited to 8 for wizards and rangers, because some "bad apples" were pulling so many mobs that they were lagging out the zones, creating a zone disruption, which is the same zone disruption that some "bad apple" magicians are doing now.

    FYI, the 8 mob limit is not an issue, since the kiter can pull about 12 mobs and DPS them down for good experience with the 12 mobs kited is below the 20-25 at which lag can start.
    Gyurika Godofwar and Jiggs like this.
  5. Axxius Augur

    Common sense wins the day! Cheers! :D
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  6. Axxius Augur

    The beam spell (just one: Beam of Solteris, hence the name of the whole type) was introduced in TBS, for wizards. And it was immediately abused. So then it was hit with the nerf bat. Rangers got frontal cones after that, which were of course abused and subsequently hit with restrictions. Mages got their beams much later, and, surprisingly, without any restrictions or downside at all. The dev team has changed a lot in between, that must have been a factor.

    So now we have this strange situation, especially between wizards and mages in comparison, where two classes have the same exact ability but one class has all sorts of restrictions and drawbacks imposed on it and the other one does not. And the solution with the summoning mobs was totally... perpendicular to that whole axis.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  7. Zalamack New Member

    Wow, I must say I am surprised our complaints were heard. I'm glad I decided to speak up this time. It just angered me to have exp options taken away so broadly and arbitrarily.

    If Valley farmers/soldiers/oashims, City of Bronze braxi/selyrah, and Shard's wyverns summoned, I would not be a level 100 necro today. These mobs were crucial in my kite leveling routine. I kited so many farmers to grind exp that my faction bottomed out at "scowls," raising back up to "dubious" after time spent in Sarith, and it's already back to "threateningly" now. When farmers turned light blue, I moved to oashims, including the mature ones, and they were good exp for a long time. Occasionally I would spent time in City of Bronze kiting the roaming animals there with friends. Later on, I kited ice wyverns in Shards for a lot of exp, although that slowed down in the late 90s levels.

    To take away those options felt wrong, because I had naturally gravitated to them as a necro. The areas are perfect for regular kiting, other kite options are more dangerous and limited, and necros don't disrupt these zones with swarms. In the future, please address the cause of the problem (players creating zone disruption by using abilities that allow swarming) without punishing innocent parties.
    Gyurika Godofwar and Eviara like this.
  8. Rogue Augur

    Where is a dislike button?? Terrible you'd let such an OP ability continue. You take stuff like this away from bards, wizards, and rangers, but let mages and sk's continue. Please add 8 hit limit to mage beam, 100 hit counter to SK epic click, or unnerf Bard, Ranger, Wiz
  9. Falos Augur


    lol? seriously? lol yet another post. I think its funny how a handful of people on the forums are in up in arms to get this ability target capped when there are better ways to deal with the exp gains (not the kiting changes that they implemented and then reversed) Mages have had the means to beam for decent exp for a year now give or take, rogues/ rangers/ sk's and various other classes had their own means to get very fast exp for YEARS AND YEARS before their abilities got stagnated.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  10. Ronthorn Oakenarm Augur

    Rangers got there first frontal cone beam so to speak in DoDH well before TBS expansion hail of arrows. Then a expansion later i believe we got our first beam root with snare recourse (i could be wrong on vinelash root on the expansion we got it).
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  11. Feistmeister Journeyman

    When a reasonably equipped 90 Monk (HoT T1 visible, T4 Jewelry => 5K AC) with 5,000 AAs (pretty much all there is to get) with a J5 cleric has issues with a second account level 85 toon with J1/J2 merc up (team of 4) I would say that the quests are a little unbalanced.

    On one go round I partnered with a 83 (IIRC) SK and we got er done, but we also wiped several times.

    If the quest is intended to be doable by a level 75 with a little help, or a full group of level 75's, then IMHO the current quest tasks are, ahem, bent...

    I know lots of people seem to say that they go from the glooming tutorial straight to HoT where they proceed to solo T4 named ... well, some of us are just not that good ... not now, maybe not ever ...

    Heck, I was stumbling on the T3 quest escort mission because I could not find the darn attackers in time ... two days with about 6 tries and 0 successes ... it wasn't that I could not kill the mobs, the parade was so spread out that I could not find the attackers in time to keep them from making too many kills...

    I don't mind the missions, I would not even have asked that they lower the numbers necessarily, but, I also don't like missions where you have to repeat because failure is built into the structure. Even missions that are not built with failure as part and parcel are hard enough... and most people are not doing them anyway ... but for those fanatics among us, it is nice that maybe sanity is breaking out a little ...

    At any rate, I don't see this as a nerd, but of a balancing ... the rest of it, I cannot comment because I doubt I will play the way that will make much of the spell changes in that I likely will misuse them anyway :)

    -- Edit
    If I was not clear, I like the changes for the merc quests as I was hoping to actually complete them all, for all my 24 toons, because that is part of the Hero's Journey... but there were just too many problems I was running into where a simple quest was not doable by one person for no really good reason that I could see ... Though it *IS* EverQuest, most players don't actually have any interest in completing many quests at all ...
  12. Kickass New Member

    Where is the nerf in rogue DPS and mitigation? Cry cry cry boo hoo.
  13. Shirion New Member

    Just give Warriors back Shakerpaging and everything will be right in the world of Norrath...
  14. Denial_Sinfae Augur

    If rogue had any less mitigation they wouldn't exist.
  15. moogs Augur

    I like the changes to the SoD quests. Makes it a little bit easier for new and returning players to get things done without having to rely on assistance from much higher level players.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  16. Vaft_Gnome Lorekeeper

    just a thought.
    as a mage, i use beam in only a handful of situations, and i love it.
    1. in raids/groups when ive gotta kill lots of little weak mobs (think rats in grelleth missions or raids).
    2. mass killing grey mobs that i tank.
    3. occasionally in a group. an sk with deflection, pulls a huge train of mobs, a few casters AE it all down.

    i have went to evantil instance (and the actual zone when it was deserted one night) and played around beam kiting just to see if there was much challenge to it (was already max aa).

    i propose adding a recourse effect on beam.
    when a player casts beam, have a recourse snare (large %, almost rooted) land for about 30 seconds.

    it would have a detrimental effect on mages that use beam in some raids / group situations when its really useful, but it wouldnt really be a big deal.
  17. Laurana Augur

    I'm late to this discussion because I was going to see how this all played out before chiming in.
    I see the summoning implementation has been put on hold for now, but I wanted to give my feedback.

    I have been playing a wizard for nearly 14 years. When the beam line was first introduced, it was a great tool to farm tradeskill supplies. I used it in the capacity of 20-30 mobs or so at a time, all grey to farm tradeskill supplies. I was interested in its xp ability, so I was able to find instances (< key word) with light blue and dark blue mobs and after many hours and deaths got the hang of it. This was fun, it took away the boredom that was soaking in for me at that time.

    Eventually the wizard beam was nerfed to a limit of 8 mobs thus ending its useful ability for anything less than having multiple wizards to beam stuff down in limited quantities.

    Then mages got beam and in the original iteration of the wizard beam. What infuriates me the most is that wizards are the supreme damage casting class; end of story. Mages have pets (wizard pets are laughable). Mage spell damage should be slightly less than wizards. This is similar for other classes such as druid heals being slightly less than clerics.

    Mages have been on a disruption spree for a long time now and the best way to fix this problem by the Devs was to implement a tsunami of summoning mobs. Why was it so easy to put a target limit on wizard beam yet not the same for mages? This is the core of the problem. This would have been like giving AoE rez to Paladins before Clerics.

    So you see, this whole mage beam fiasco has created double standards, not just within the classes of EQ, but also in the Devs and other decision makers decision making. This behavior has your customers questioning your ability to actually continue running this game.

    Furthermore, in regards to the melee AA lines such as Decapitate et al., they have been nerfed. As stated multiple times on these forums, the line will not be continued. It will only take another one or two level increase when these lines will only work on grey mobs. The optimal route would have been to increase the level difference for this ability instead of outright cancelling it (again bad decision making). Cap the ability to work on mobs 15 or 20 levels below the character max. That then puts the highest level con mob to about green or light blue at max.

    I'm just glad to hear that the summoning issue has been put on hold. I hope the Sony team can sit down and really feel out the optimal move for this situation. Your players have given you some great advice. After all, we know the game best. We've been playing it for upwards of a decade and a half; there is some real insight to be gained if you are willing to listen.
    Yinla likes this.
  18. postid Journeyman

    I appreciate your thoughtful post, and agree with a lot, but, its not just mages. Need to address the real issue which is ppl who disrupt play of others. I really dont care how awesome (insert class here) is, what i would like is the ability to log in and play without the zone being lagged and unplayable
  19. Shodai New Member

    Is there a timetable for when the summoning changes will be reverted on Test?
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  20. Ratbo Peep Augur

    *** NPC ***
    - The brown hair and bowl cut is so 1999! Player race NPCs now have a lot more visual variety. Hair is colorfully coifed. Erudites have decorated their domes with jeweled headbands and the occasional tasteful piercing. Some Barbarians have dipped into a bucket of face paint.

    Something went very wrong here. :)
    Bald NPC's and green haired mercs abound now.
    -Rat