Test Update 09/12/2017 - Patch Notes and Discussion

People "quit" - at least their class, as you said - when they are dissatisfied with something they care much about too.
When too many players of a class decide they want to main-change, it's just as hurting (the guilds and the game as such in extension) as if they totally quit - though the impact might be somewhat less.

Take a guild that is not blessed with a lot of healers for example - which are many, especially the "lower" the guilds are.
This nerf to QM especially is BAD.
And even though i could take and "win"

I am one of the people that you mentioned that box a cleric.
And i can see how many a cleric will be QUITE dissatisfied with this timer change and mana-requirement to QM especially.
But more than on an individual basis, this change hurts whole guilds - mainly those that are still at the reaper stage in EoK. like one on our server - whether or not the cleric quits or mainchanges.

The few times i played my cleric on a raid now, of course he died lots.
Until this "patch" goes live, that hasn't been too much of an issue - he could get back into the fray almost right away, and even be "fed" along the way by his colleagues.
Now, that is no longer an option.
Self-QM is no longer possible, because of the mana-requirement.
Other clerics feeding him is not likely going to happen, at least not while the guild is not immune yet.
And even our long-time immune main clerics are already posting it's unlikely they will QM now in an event - at the very least hardly as "liberally" as until today.
The "lots of deaths" events like Queen, Vault and Reaper have just become that much harder just by this one change.
I just don't understand why they make things harder for the "stragglers" all the time.
Kind of makes "race the expansion before they tune-up the events" a necessity...

Frankly, with "across the board nerfs" like this, they are adding small stones.
People can adjust to a lot of things and learn to adapt, to cope.
But them nerfing classes (many classes in this single patch even), only to then "retune" some events to make them beatable again just makes no real sense now, does it?
And these "little stones"...
They add up.
The MAIN thing keeping players in the game is the social ties, not their class abilities.
But add ongoing issues like the chat-lag (most but not exclusively noticeable on AB),
and major changes like this single patch alone - and without a communication of "where do we want to go with this"...
If things happen too closely to each other, people might re-think their personal choices on how exactly to spend their free time.
Sometimes i really wonder what the goals of the devs are - do they want to get rid of EQ to get more dev time for "greener pastures" or something?
Sure looks that way when they're ignoring the situation on a server for months and instead of fixing it, apparently spent time on "developing" nerf that REALLY hurt - and the "latecomers" or "underachievers" the most.

Above all, this is supposed to be a game.
A game's "legitimation" is to provide a FUN experience.
Take the fun away (only to re-sell it in two month's time perhaps?) and yeah.. people might just reach their individual points of where they think that the "fun" isn't worth their money anymore.

If that's the case and they get to ride that stupid bear indoors My mount better be changed to indoor usable also. Fair is fair right?

Please fix the casting particle animations to match the duration of the spell cast. Don't know why this was ever changed, but it does negatively impact game play when players are watching spells being casted.

As far as I know it was a deliberate choice by the devs quite awhile ago, in order to tone down spell-particles on raid fights. Before, you either had spell-particles turned completely off, or you stared into a huge permanent particle cloud the whole raid. Now I can at least see both spell-particles and the raid mobs.

Unless they changed it again, haven't checked test this time...

I'd be fine with this outcome.

What youre actually going to have to be "fine with" is not having a bear mount that works inside despite however much complaining you make.

I understand the reasoning for this, except for that they limited the spell casting animation.. the problem at raids was the raid target itself, and spells landing on targets. Those animations could've been shortened. But when you cast a 10 second spell and your particle effects disappear in a few seconds, it doesn't make any sense. Might as well just remove all spell particles from the game.

They are letting you know. With this very patch, actually.

Your*

For all your complaining about "What really upsets you is that daybreak hasn't made a post to inform the community", you yourself have had every opportunity to goto the veterans lounge and the Newbie lounge and the TLP forums to make a post to get the word out. Yet the only place you have posted is here, ironically the same place that daybreak DID in fact inform the community that the item is being fixed.

if people don't read test notes, they have no excuse to be surprised about what gets patched on the live/tlp servers

also Maedros makes a good point-if you're so worried about people feeling cheated by the mount with this patch known, why don't you go post on the tlp section and in game

There are guilds in EQ that progress more slowly than others. Some of us are farming and STILL trying to progress through EoK. Part of our struggle of the last 3 years has been the loss of players whose class was nerfed in the past. Sure they tried to adapt, but their character wasn't fun to play anymore, so they either switched mains or quit the game altogether. I can say it's a fact that Nerfs of the past have affected players and guilds (mostly tank classes) in a negative way.

Cleric - Quiet Miracle has been renamed Quiet Prayer and now consumes mana equal to the health/mana restored to the target. The ability now shares a timer with Veturika's Perseverance. The amount of health/mana restored by Veturika's Perseverance has been increased to 30000. The reuse time of these abilities has been increased to 20 minutes.

As a Raid Cleric, I click a rod + hit VP when mana is low, or after I'm rez'd. Or I'll QM a newly rez'd caster so they can function again too. QM doesn't give that much mana really, VP is even less, and their refresh timers are already 10 minutes. But with the two, we're able to use them multiple times during a raid, which keeps from having to sit and med while tanks die around me after my AA heals & various clickies are spent. We don't generate much mana in combat mode, you know? And in TBM and EoK Raids combat mode seems to last forever now... Recovery is already a real time sink for us all.

With these proposed changes, you are reducing Clerics to 1 shot at recovery mana for the entire raid, and we die a lot on new raid content. I don't see us being able to use QM on others at all, if they're on the same timer, and the refresh time is doubled to 20 minutes--not to mention hitting someone else with QM will lower our own mana by that amount?? You might as well just eliminate QM altogether, seriously.

Other Clerics have proposed some "different" changes to QM and VP, but I am asking you to please just leave them alone entirely. They are badly needed just as they are. The prospect of being rez'd in useless on a raid, unable to heal for awhile, is not going to be fun, and it's only going to hinder our raid progression further.

I think what Maedros is asking is why didn't you make a post asking if it was working as intended prior to buying it? You stated previously that you were thinking it might not be allowed.
Is he being edgy? Probably. Where this comes from is it often seems that people will take advantage of something and then come complain after it is fixed and it gets tiresome as it is fairly obvious that people knew it was something that was going to be fixed but stayed silent while it benefited them.

Thanks, Hludwolf would you care to comment on the reasons why AB is not getting a performance, I think if you state what you are doing and the problem the server is facing people will be more willing to wait for a solution rather than just quiting, you are on a ticking clock at the moment to get it fixed, as people are getting less patient and not logging in, and you are more open with the problems and solutions and any possible timescales the more appeased the AB community would be.

Oh, and with regards to the quitting...
Whether it'd be because of changes like this, or "simply" the ongoing issues on our server or even "just" the summer-time...
People are already moving to other games.
In fact, the currently most active thread on our boards is about a different game.
So far, people "play" both - i.e. those doing that other game at least show up for raids still.
But how much longer?

I get what you are saying but to be fair DBG is doing exactly what they have always done. If players don't read the test notes or even game patch notes when they occur, that is totally on them. I guess they will find out from others who did read it and have to relay that information.

I'm going to ignore and not read mail that pertains to manufacturer defects on my vehicle when they come, but when my brakes fail I am going to flip out and act astonished. Kidding but you get the point

Ok, let me get this correct.

You want dbg to post a full list of bugs which mind you many of which they likely didn't know about until recently, so players can abuse the bugs until said bugs are fixed?

The fact you yourself didn't make a post about it pretty much says you knew it wasn't intended and were trying not to draw attention to it so you could abuse said bug.

And now after its fixed you come here and complain that dbg didn't post a comprehensive list of bugs/exploits so that people who are all angels will say oh hey that's a bug I better not use it.

Sure, some players might not but many more will. Which is why no mmo or even competitive online game companies will post such a list.

Carry on though its obvious you're not going to drop it but your posts are making the nerfs seem not as bad thanks for that at least

The changes to QM for clerics - you may as well delete this ability and give us an AA refund.

Totally redundant ability.

To be honest, it's not totally redundant.
VP is self-only, while QM is targeted.

Still...
Previously on timer 41 and 42 iirc, now on the same timer - and reuse even extended from 10mins (VP) and 5mins (QM) to 20mins for both.
For what?
So they can sell us focus AAs or some ?

As a WAR i am even less concerned about the tanking nerfs, bad as they are.
But quite concerned about this particular thing - and not even just because of myself or my own guild.

It's a crap change that shouldn't make it to live.
And no i am not even offering a "just do that" - it should stay as it was...