Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

We talked a lot about the 80 vs 85 in the grant. There are advantages both ways, but there's a fair amount of stuff that changes the way you play after 85. While we can understand arguments on both sides, right now we're still sticking with 85. If you have arguments for 80 please post them so that they get read.

The same things stopping you from training other people, blurring the mob they're fighting, and stealing their loot.

Yeah i still think its a tad overboard though, I never really like getting overpowered skills. I just like to have a place and use in raids and groups.

That is not a debate Piestro no debate existed between you and the players who raised the concern that is in fact an ultimatum just like the one you complained about just now you took no feedback on board at all just left everything unchanged ...........................

They do not seem to be grasping the bigger picture, THE LONGEVITY of the game. That is exactly what they are going to see, a burst of $ from people who never intended on subscribing, because they are being given so so much that first month. But wait, what do I get for recurring? Nothing? Oh...k.

This must be the first time EVER that a red name has actually straight up said they have nerfed something. Usually it is some smarmy weasel words that they did an "adjustment' or "decided to re-envision or re-evaluate" that tries to be the brown suit worn after falling in the Honey Bucket.

Bravo, Piestro for having the nuggets to not be the usual corporate, politically correct PR guy that you are and speaking our language for a change.

I gotta agree with this wholeheartedly.

Get us long time players some more newbies yeah!

If you lower the procs per minute of decap, can you adjust the HP's of the crystals in EW raid? We feel a huge benefit to having zerkers decap the crystals on the raid, to the point where if we don't have at least two zerkers in the raid, we won't even attempt EW. I know these changes will have far and wide effect in the game, here's just another example.

Thanks for the fun then if that's the decision. Game over.

My SK couldn't care less about ridiculous swarm mechanics that break the spirit of Everquest. But I do want to tank x mobs in a group. Thanks for taking our feedback seriously.

Big improvement. Question: Will the hit limit be at least equal to the numbers of swings/ripostes a well-geared SK can get against 4-5 or more unslowed mobs in current content in 2.5 minutes, assuming that it lives that long (one of those 'oh ****' situations), or will the hit limit simply be some number pulled out of a hat ('....and the Magic Eight Ball says....12').

If the former - so Lich Sting and all of our melee ripostes remain a survivability tool, just as capable as they are now - great!

If the number is just something pulled out of a hat - please go back to the drawing board and relook the hit limit so that we retain our current tanking capability.

(Though frankly simply killing Mortal Coil and replacing with another AA line may be worth considering as well - will be an interesting discussion within the SK community.)

Piestro

Rogue thoughts.. I'd really like a developer to reply to this as it is VERY important to me. I've even got an active petition in hoping it's addressed as it's a huge impact to my ability to play this game.

There are several huge issues that Rogues have in this game, while DPS is a primary concern of most people it's not the most important thing to me. From everything I've heard.. DPS is at a pretty decent place for Rogues right now when properly buffed and they know what they're doing. At least when they're in raids.

The issues I'm talking about are glaring for either most melee or at the very least a select few.

Lack of Survival while soloing or grouping is a HUGE one. Lack of valid Range options is another. Overcomplexity of existing utility, and lack of further utility is another. And finally.. lack of overall DPS while soloing is especially difficult for a Rogue.. and it's even worse when combined with all of the previous issues.

With the removal of Assassination on Riposte via Knaves Return Strike we lose one of the very few soloing mechanics we had to work with.. Here are the issues broken out and a suggestion I have that might help address it. Keep in mind, my suggestions are just that.. suggestions. The problem is still there and if you decide that you don't like my suggestions please come up with something that addresses the problem.

1] Survival - This is an issue when soloing, grouping, or raiding especially as a Rogue.

Soloing/Grouping - It can be very difficult to take sustained damage from an enemy, recently it's seemed as if things started hitting for much more damage than they used to. I'm currently level 91 and can hardly solo my level 85 daily mission in Old Blood Field. And when I say I can hardly solo it.. with even level gear, decent mastery of my character, and a J5 Healer on Reactive I can barely kill light blue enemies 1 v 1. If a second one joins it means I'm going to die.. My experiences with grouping are much worse usually resulting in death in under 5 seconds when fighting even content such as enemies in Grounds or Lunanyn. Suggestions for addressing this.

Riposte, Parry, and Dodge are my three favorite skills for a Rogue and I feel like they hardly ever rely on them. They seem to want to face tank like a fighter does. The closest thing I have to making me different is my Lithe Discipline. With Lithe I have issues with my endurance and cannot use other Disciplines that could be useful for damage. My suggestion for this is to enhance these defenses through AA's.

1) A Parry/Riposte Rogue Passive AA that increases frequency of Parries and Ripostes heavily.
2) A Dodge Passive Rogue AA that could 'hopefully' take the place of Lithe and the other dodge combat abilities. I'd be perfectly fine if those abilities were removed in favor of a static AA.
3) Extension of Knaves Return Strike to increase damage off of Ripostes via Backstabs.
4) A New Riposte Rogue Passive AA that debuffs the damage done by enemies hit by your Riposte for a very short time. Not enough to cause you to aggro juggle to debuff.. but enough to make it so that when you do get hit by sustained damage while soloing you won't die from burst damage every time.

Raiding - When raiding the biggest issue I ever ran into was Rampage damage. It was just something that you had to deal with. It was never fun. It always kept the healers much more taxed than they ought to be. I usually got passed over for ANY ranged character as they would simply not be near the rampage. I feel that this mechanic is directly detrimental to Rogues.. and that we should be able to reduce it through AA's. It would allow Rogues to much more easily enter into raids and have fun with the late end of the game. I feel that this Rampage Damage Reduction AA would be extremely useful to all lightly armored melee characters such as Rangers, Monks, Berserkers, Rogues, Beast Lords, and possibly even Bards.

2] Lack of Range Options - This is a very short one.. but Rogues have pretty much no range options available to them. There are times where it's pretty much needed in order to do DPS without instantly killing yourself.

1) I'd really like to see an Endless Quiver style AA.
2) This is somewhat of a continuation of the first suggestion.. I'd really like to see itemization for Thrown Weapons as opposed to Bows for Rogues. Something on par with existing high end bows. If this happens I'm entirely happy with making the Endless Quiver option function only for Thrown Weapons.

3] Complex Utility Mechanics - This is primarily referring to Poisons.

1) I'd really like to see poisons become duration based and not Duration + Charge based. With the amount of utility/damage that Poisons provide to us and the amount we rely on them to be on par with other classes.. It's amazing that they're as expensive as they are to make (at the high end) yet only have a couple dozen charges.

2) Utility Rogue Poisons and High End Damage Poisons should be easier to make. Merchants should either sell the materials to make them directly or farming the materials should be much easier to do.

4] Finally Lack of DPS while soloing. - Frontal Arc DPS is pretty pathetic for a Rogue.. It can be very difficult to achieve positioning as a Rogue and not always as rewarding as it would be to simply play a class without that restriction. I suggest upping Chaotic Stab damage to be much more on par with the amount of damage we can pull from the rear arc. Probably closer to 80% of full damage. When soloing however, that combined with Ripostes should bring a Rogue closer to 120-125% of the damage they can do normally as there is much more risk.

I hope it wasn't too hard to read.
One more thing.. in regards to Assassinate/Headshot/Decapitate ease of use.
Assassinate: It's a small chance off of a backstab. There is a small chance to backstab off of a Riposte. There is a small chance to Riposte off of an attack against you.
Headshot: It's a small chance on a ranged attack.
Decapitate: It's a small chance off of a normal attack. There is an AA to cause all Ripostes to generate a normal attack as well.
The way I've always understood it to work would be..
Decapitate is a Chance off of either a Normal Attack or Riposte (Because the Riposte has a normal attack as well)
Headshot is a Chance off of a Ranged Attack (Which they can perform quite often)
Assassinate is a Chance, off of a Chance, off of a Chance.. and can be INCREDIBLY difficult to proc compared to the the others.
Will this be changing at all? Because it hardly seems fair.
Also.. Extra bonus question.. Decapitate is not limited to the same enemies Headshot and Assassinate are. Will this be changing? If so, how will it be changing?
And finally.. There is a huge AA cost discrepancy between Headshot AA, Anatomy AA, and Decapitate AA. Will this be changing and how?
Bonus-Bonus Suggestion.. I think it would pretty cool to have Track as a Rogue, even if it's limited like the Bard gets. Especially with all Rogue classes in EQ2 having it.
Bonus-Bonus-Bonus Suggestion.. Rogues could use a little bit more speed as we've pretty much got to get everywhere without any sort of magical assistance. The only ones as bad off as we are at times are Warriors and Berserkers.

Looks like they took into consideration a bunch of feedback. Just because you and others still don't like the answer isn't a reason come here and show your in front of everyone.

Maybe, but that's still part of the fun. People did create chars, to enjoy a certain way of playing.

So intent changes, may well = people losing their desire to play a certain toon.

How about class change tokens for sale with such a massive change of chars playability?

Jaded. Well you asked. And no, I had to sit through about 5 hours of meetings today on this topic to help come up with these decisions. While we'd love to be all evil genius diabolical, we don't do the fallback conciliatory plan thing. We listened, we made changes, and we announced them. Now we're continuing to listen.

Great, dumb it all down and insult every veteran. I get sick and tired of all these people saying ohh its too many AA to grind...

Tell that to the people who ground them out. What do they earn for having them already.

Might as well give out brells augs and defensive tears too, toss in a burden of truth and the shoulders in cotf maxed out as well.

Way to go SOE, well remember you as the ones who put the nail in the coffin.

Trivialize ANYTHING and its done. Period. All in the name of you making a few more bucks.

EQ lasted so long because it WASNT easy... guess you don't get that.

Why don't you simply take the sliding scale higher up to 7k aa and people still have to actually earn it?

I know! it makes to much sense and it wouldn't piss the rest of us off. We cant have that.

Well, if the SK ends up being built around tanking instead of swarming....

Thanks for listening to us and adding the autogrant finally.