Test Update 04/16/14

Oh my goodness is this is one of the best patches I can think of in recent memory. Wow.

However, one thing worries me that has been brought up: Hunter of Plane of War. Have you addressed the issue of only one group getting credit for killing named when multiple groups attempt it? The example I use is back in Chelsith Reborn, two of the NPCs were designed as two-group encounters. You could form a raid to defeat them, however, the group that got experience were the only people that got credit. The other groups did not. Since PoW named, for the most part, are multi-group encounters, can you please clarify if you have or have not changed the way this works?

I may be wrong but the log they are referring to is likely the log for parsing and not the real time read of EQ text. I suppose if you are using 3rd party software to cause audio trigger off these logs it may cause an issue but if you use in game audio triggers they shouldn't be affected? I can apprentice this change as long as it doesn't break the parse entirely as my computer suffers performance issues with /log on at times and this may alleviate this to a degree.

I just noticed when I ran 3 toons to lobby, the one I left standing went auto afk, the 2 that sat did not. Not sure if this was intentional or not. Not much of a big deal to me either way just an fyi

Yes, you can set it to 0 to eliminate the delay, but it's going to be a totally unneeded new PITA to constantly remind everybody in the raid about it. The existing behavior (i.e. 0) should be the default, and those who want to reduce the amount of disk operations can set it to something other than 0.

Why do people turn the log on in the first place? Mostly to use the log parsers. Screwing up such popular log parsers as GINA and GTT would be bad.

I'm sure it refers to the log file. Delaying internal text processing would totally screw up EQ's own audio triggers, not just GINA and GTT.

These achievements are ridiculously easy. I don't even know what to say. We already did all of the pre-nerf ones, which makes me wonder if the tuning is a little extreme in the other direction. They were obviously doable with a little bit of practice. Every single re-tuned achievement seems like a status quo for guilds on typical runs. Even the easy ones were re-tuned to be trivial at best.

Quick Death is now "Don't let the dragon go below 90% health." Neriak balancing is now "Kill the ghouls within 40 seconds of spawning," etc.

Bloodstained Shoulders can now be purchased for 1200 currency, as well as the Sash, Stoneoak Tower Shield, and Ring of Revenge.

Not being elitist here, i'm just wondering why take out any challenge at all in the 'hard-modes' entirely? It seems balanced horribly in the other direction.

Yeah, I take back my best patch ever. There are some awesome changes, but making the achievements... easier? Really? Who asked for that?

The group missions and achievements are a complete joke compared to previous expansions.

Much as I like being able to get the ach, and being able to buy the shoulders, I agree that the new modified ach swung a bit to far to the opposite side of the spectrum and many look too easy. Still like the other patch changes.

I can't comment on how easy the achievements may have become, but except for a couple, they aren't that bad now. We've done over half without really trying, and the one that I thought would be a pain ( Saving Jacyll ) is actually a million times easier when you do one of the achievements.

These are nice. They are still doable in their current state but they were mindlessly dull. But as I read more into these notes...

Thanks, that part of the raid was stretched out.

Why?

Why?

Why did the easiest expansion to ever exist just get easier?

For those interested in what these changes are specifically:

- Defense of M'Lady (replaced King of the Hill.) Don't let the dragon get under 90%.
- Outlast, Outfight. Kill 15 Qeynos Guards before Galenth dies.
- Spelling Bee (replaced Don't skip a Beat.) Kill the Lieutenants in alphabetical order.
- Honey Don't (replaced Defying the Drum.) Kill all the adds before killing Vaxa.
- Disease Ease. Cast 4 disease spells while Xulous Prime has counteract disease active.
- Bad Breath. Only the kiter can't be hit by his/her own disease cloud.
- Things are too hard, all the missions and raids for some reason got easier because a pile of bricks was consulted about Everquest's difficulty. Achievements feel like they are being auto granted now instead of being, well, an achievement.

I feel like I just typed in all these commands while playing Doom.

All Keys And Weapons
Cheat code: IDKFA
All Weapons
Cheat code: IDFA
Automap
Cheat code: IDBEHOLDa
Berserk Pack
Cheat code: IDBEHOLDs
Display Location
Cheat code: IDMYPOS
Get Chainsaw
Cheat code: IDCHOPPERS
God Mode
Cheat code: IDDQD
Light Amplification Goggles
Cheat code: IDBEHOLDl

It that how it works? I wonder because the file does not always update. You couls always /log off and still get all the text in game, as well as audio trigger firing. The two seem separate to me. EQ displays the info regardless and the log file is a record of the info if you wish to actually turn it on and save it.
What i'm getting at is the log file is separate from audio triggers and displayed info in the game itself

Thinking on it some more, I suppose since we've already done all of the achievements pre-nerf, maybe some of these will be fun to go back and do differently as some have been completely revamped before T2 releases. I really like the unlocking of items through achievements, but i'm not sure on the Bloodstained Shoulders. I really liked the idea of at least one rare 'chase' item that has some prestige to it.

Some of these raid changes are good - the tethering on clouds sucked in Dead Hills. Neriak 2 is less tedious. Sergeant Larenzo had the Protection of Bayle on constantly, so our casters went semi-afk during the few minutes he takes. Some simple quality of life things, you know.

I don't think the damage nerfs were needed by any means - we rarely, if ever, have a tank die once he steps up for any and every boss in CoTF. Maybe some people were struggling more than I realize, but I doubt it given the number of guilds in pure farm status right now.

Overall good patch. Given I was able to do all the old achievements, no harm in actually letting me try new approaches to the events for the next little bit.

So far I am mixed about the patch notes and what it contains. However, I do have a question. Is there a likeliness that since the Bloodstained shoulders were added to the CoTF vendor, that the Burden of Truth can be added to the RoF vendors? They are both the chase evolving item from that expansion and are still relatively good (though what the next content release holds comparatively has yet to be seen).

And while we're splitting out uselessly spammy stuff into their own filters, can we get some way of filtering out pet deaths? I need to see when I die. I need to see when my group/raid mates die. I like to see when the mob dies. I do NOT want to see when the 300 stupid spam pets of every freaking class dies. Unfortunately, "stupid spam pets" falls under the filter of "every single death that isn't me", and I can get rid of them without losing information that I need to see. =(

Thank you for filtering our flurry. Thank you for cutting down the tedium on Hate Rising. Thank you, very very much, for the faster method of sub-combining. Please make auto-afk the default setting, and thank you for that too. Please don't screw up our usage of GINA and GTT type programs with the log writing thing; lots of people aren't very tech savvy, and trying to tell them how to fix it is going to be a massive headache for all involved.

I'm not sure how I feel about the achievement changing, and I don't know that I care for the evolving items suddenly showing up on the merchant, regardless of how many achievements you have to do to open them up.

The Divine Aura line of Cleric spells has been broken, in my opinion for a couple weeks now. Either the description for this line of spells is incorrect now or the entire line is broken. I get hit with snare, stun and some nasty DoTs in Plane of War while DA is running only to respawn with it still running. Either the description should be changed to say that it renders the caster invulnerable to some/most attacks or the spell should be returned to its original effect, actual invulnerability.

{regarding auto afk}

they won't because the 4 people on zek will /cry.


People are really complaining they made the raids easier? Come on!
I'm betting good platinum we can expect the tier 2 content to be more difficult as the original tier1/1b. This happened quite often back in the day (wasn't around '07-'12), first raid mob coming to mind is good old Zi--Thulle Gargy Pants in Demi Plane.

I used to hate when they released expansions 2 per year.
Then I hated staggered release expansions. But then I realized, hey, I'm not being charged $80 per year per account for expansions anymore.

I will give the development team the benefit of the doubt. With all of these changes, I expect Tier 2 to be ... appropriately challenging to say the least.

The Challenge for them will be to have the Tier 2 gear not over-trivialize Plane of War.

I'd prefer it if settings were defaulted to stay as they are now. I don't want to have to go through all my chars and change them.

What triggers Auto Turn Off AFK?

Can I still chat in /gu, /rs, group and tells without losing my /afk tag.

I thought a passive merc still charged the player? Not sure I understand the reason for this one, other than to get me killed as it has gone AFK.

Is there a auto merc non passive to counteract this? I'd hate to see players die because they tabbed out to check something and the merc decided it was going to put itself on passive and you didn't notice when you returned and pulled something.

To get afk off from auto afk you just have to hit any key on your keyboard, it doesn't have to do anything either just any key press on keyboard with EQ active seems to do it