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

After reading some responses, I want to be a little more blunt concerning the cleric issue. The truth of the matter is EQ has never truly addressed it. The real problem has been skirted with antidote band aides.

1. Complaint: There are not enough clerics in the game for groups.
Solution: mercenaries.
Consequence: loss of need for the class, clerics loss of content support, the enjoyment of interaction lost
Result: the game changes, a band aide for the community need, but isolation for clerics. Clerics resulted into either boxing, holding onto a circle of players for play or begging for help with challenges above the single light blue mob.

2. Complaint: Clerics scream to help the class achieve some independence.
Solution: Improving armor, adding, spells/AAs (1st spire, Vow, Censure, improve pet, etc...) Also giving smite and boosting turn undead
Consequence: Clerics began to gain excitement for their class. They felt they were heard. Play enjoyment improved because of the new independence.
Result: interest in the class. Although these changes were good, it was a band aide in the sense the solution focused in improving survival ability and evasion. So clerics survived moving in zones......a step forward in class appeal.

3. Complaint: Not enough clerics for raid teams.
Solution: boosting other healing classes to compensate the lack of cleric mains
Consequence: Interest in other classes
Result: alternatives to clerics, a band aide for the community, but little spotlight to the direct issues of the class.

4. Complaint: Value of clerics as healers
Solution: boosting the healing potential through spells and AAs, helping the cleric class to treasure something specific and special to them, the best healing class. Addition of QM and VP to help with recovery to keep them a viable commodity.
Consequence: Clerics became powerful healers, as it should be
Result: Mains left in the game became coveted throughout the game

5. Complaint: The nerfing of QM and smite
Solution: taking away a skills that helped with recovery and independence
Result: Low recovery, less independence, loss of appeal for the class.

I don't know the game plan honestly, maybe there is something that will reveal itself. Don't get me wrong, as a cleric I don't desire to have matched skills as a tank or necro, I would just like to be able to do a little more by myself than a single LB or a weak yellow. A cleric should at least be able to put a collar with a chain on an undead with their boot in the small of its back. This is why the class is boring and uneventful; all it can do is heal. My request is the delvs look at the class directly and not pop band aides everywhere else. Honestly, I think some of these nerfs are more fair based rather viewed best for the class.

Could the developers please explain what the intention/logic behind this 'consolidation' is?
Two abilities are combined into one, so it becomes more powerful, but produces more aggro and thereby will get the cleric killed. What was so bad or wrong with delivering the damage in smaller doses and on different occasions?

I also can't comprehend why you 'consolidate' the AA Helix of the Undying into Improved Demmand for SOMETHING, so Paladins and Shadowknights need to cast a spell (which in the past was only used in very limited situations) in the hope to make it trigger. Could a deveolper please explain their intention for this change and what the chances of the slow landing on an undead are? (The original Helix could be resisted!)
Why do we have to waste one of our few spell slots now, to have a chance to trigger this ability?

Same goes for the 'consolidation' of Bony Grasp of Death into Encroaching Darkness: Again i can't comprehend what the intention in combining two abilities, that were used on different occasions and mob types, is? What was so wrong with having two buttons for different situations?

I wonder if a developer or game designer does mind commenting on this?

Actually, no. I'm 'complaining' (wow, this is getting so repetitive....) because they aren't addressing this one specific bug that pertains to REAL MONEY being spent on an item that isn't working as intended. You can twist it any way you wish, but I find this irresponsible, considering they're making money hand over fist over this item....that is getting changed. They should be informing people who are still trying to buy it that it wont be the same in a week.

You act like this is your average bug. It isn't.

The difference being, they reached out to you and told you about a defect, they didn't just post it on a test forum, with 1 line of text, on their own website. I would argue that most people who play on TLPs don't bother checking test notes. Why would they? Most TLP changes are very minor and they're almost always mentioned on the TLP forum anyways.

Further, I am drawing attention to it. I've mentioned it many times in chat when people try to sell the bear that hey, it's getting nerfed. Most people don't sit on the EQ forums.

They should disable the item from being purchased until it's fixed. That would be the responsible thing to do.

If it was too much mana recovery on the CLERIC, Shroud of the Miracle should be applied for VP as well. Let us use QM on other players still... otherwise, you've just made QM useless. Anyone asking for it will simply get "heh" in reply.

It's been the standard communication method for years. Why would they change that? What avenue would you prefer they take? A popup in game outlining a change that will only impact a few people who bought the item? Perhaps an email blast - both in game and out.

And after that, who decides what other updates / bug fixes get the same treatment? It would quickly turn into more arguments about other updates / bug fixes that didn't get released to this new ultra-visible method.

We've never had the option to purchase an item that isn't available in game to [add/remove] an effect that has been in play for over a decade. There's no wrap for H2H that would allow my monk to negate all ripostes from mobs. There's no staff for casters that completely negates mana cost. There's no shield for tanks that completely blocks incoming melee. There's no rod for clerics that rezzes without rez sickness. Why would they have added a mount that can be used in a manner completely different than the hundreds of other mounts already in the game? And, more importantly, why wouldn't they have advertised it as such?

You got burned. It sucks, but it happens. Buyer beware. It's not reasonable to expect them to not fix this bug just because you spent money on it. There are plenty of other mounts / items people have spent money on. It's not reasonable to expect them to remove this item from the marketplace either - they should be as readily available as any other item so people can purchase it like any other mount they would want.

In addition to making bear mounts outdoor-only, can you also turn all the bear mounts into gnomes? Or better yet, turn ALL the mounts into gnomes. I want to see server-wide gnome riding!

Isn't riding a bear indoors like putting on an illusion to get past a locked door without a rogue? Oh wait that door thing was fixed after 10 years huh? I want a free rogue. To make up for the doors I cannot know get through.

PS this is sarcasm and as such is meant to be funny, not belittling any person or other comment.

The illusion-door trick was an exploit too, I guess most of us expected it to get fixed sooner or later, I was surprised it took so long though...

If the devs wanted us to pass through locked doors, they would have implemented a way they made a little more sense...

Like that unlocker-clicky you can quest in deadhills, or those under-utilized ldon-"unlock-spells", give the rogue-merc lock-picking-abillity. Lots of missed opportunities to give everyone lock-pick abilities, that made sense...

Or just make a front page statement, or an announcement post. The test patch forum is an obscure forum. Most EQ players I'd imagine don't read it. Even the majority of the people who read patch notes don't read them until after they are live. Why is this so unreasonable, and are you defending this so harshly? It makes no sense. As far as I can tell this issue doesn't even affect you or the other 4 people who seem to be extremely upset that I'm posting here about this issue.

I already said they could have disabled the bugged item. Is that not reasonable? Secondly, being able to mount indoors isn't game breaking, and comparing it to some of the things you've mentioned is asinine.

And finally, they do offer things on the marketplace that you can't get in world. So your entire point is pretty much invalid in the first place.

Example: On ragefire for a time we were able to purchase a firesprite spirit that basically trivialized Talendor because it offered a stacking fire resist that you couldn't get in game.

You can get a fairy illusion that gives you a free shrink, and 4 hour levitation. Sure both of these are available in game, or pay 750, and get both in one go.

Experience potions. 20 slot bags 100wr bags. Both of those aren't available in game, and in the case of the bags are way beyond what was originally offered during the expansions available on TLPs.

I have 6 40 slot bags on 3 of my characters. Not available in game. Infact the best you can get on any of the current tlp 3.0 servers is a 10 slot 100wr bag. I think there is one 12 slot, but it's not 100wr. I don't even think you can get 40 slot 100wr bags on live in game by any means.

I can continue, but I think I've made my point. I'm not opposed to spending money in a cash shop. I'm opposed to them releasing something that was broken, not announcing it, and just letting people buy it, then change it later on without any real open communication about the issue.

If I were you, I would hurry up and make a post on the TLP-forums and guild-forums about it, in order to save others from spending money needlessly. You said previously that others were still buying that mount in good faith, warn them before its too late!

any mention of the bear mount being usable indoors seems oddly absent from the Bug Roundup thread (or any thread before this one). maybe you wouldn't have spent so much money on it if you had asked if it was intended to be used indoors

But again, which statements get announced in the ultra-visible method? Next you'll say "well, change [X] didn't get pushed to me when I logged in, how could you have made that change?!" Considering we're on page 14 of this with over 19,000 views, I'd say this is fairly visible. I don't know how long this forum has been around, but I'd wager several years - maybe even a decade. If someone doesn't know to look here for advanced copies of notes, it's their own fault for their voice not being heard.

Why disable it though? It has an added feature that's unintended. It's not being advertised as such. DBG doesn't have flashing lights and arrows pointing to it saying "Buy this! It works indoors!" It's a mount that entirely circumvents a mechanic that has been around since the introduction of mounts. If someone is being told this works indoors, they're being fed some misinformation about the bug.

My examples are absurd and would be game-breaking. Wasn't sure of any other examples of day-1-mechanics to circumvent. How about a food that stops the need to eat after it's been force fed once? Or a rez item that ports you to your corpse instead of requiring a summon? Perhaps a teleport to any zone you want instead of the predetermined ones? My point was we don't have items that break mechanics.

There are plenty of items in the marketplace you can't get in the world. Complete the quote though if you want to accurately discuss it: "We've never had the option to purchase an item that isn't available in game to [add/remove] an effect that has been in play for over a decade."

A shrink / lev combo isn't going to add or remove an effect in game. Experience pots aren't going to. Bags aren't going to. The firesprite on Ragefire I have no knowledge of, but from your phrasing it sounds like it's not available anymore anyway. I wonder why.

And lastly,

If they were going to update each and every bug as it came up, the game would never have updates. We'd never have expansions. We would have so much downtime we would instead coordinate uptime.

I know many people that spent over $100 CASH trying to get the bear mount, then resorted to buying a krono so they could use that to trade for the bear mount. On TLP, any chance we get to get mana as fast as possible is a very real big deal. On Test/Live? Not so much as mana regen is trivial in comparison.

It doesn't matter if "common sense" says we should have known that the mount wasn't intended to be used indoors. DBG knows very well just how much money people have spent trying to get this item as one of the randoms possible in the crate. THIS is what makes people quit the game: it's flat out bait and switch.

The only real solution here is to leave the bears that are already in the game with the ability to be used in doors, and any future bears should be tagged differently so that they can't be used indoors. Much like Guise of the Deceiver (labeled as usable by only ROG/BRD but can be used by all classes) changed to Mask of Deception (now coded properly to be usable only by ROG/BRD); or like the "pre-nerf" circlet of shadows vice "post nerf" circlet of shadows.

I guess if we want to get down to semantics....

You're right, indoors mounts have never been available in game. Mounts have though. (And there goes your whole argument, but I'll continue.) Mounts have been in game since 2002. They're usable in like 75% of the zones. They're not new. This one was special though. Just like literally every example I listed. None of them are gamebreaking, including the mount.

My comment about the fire sprite was that it offered an effect that wasn't available in game. Sure something similar (maybe?) might be offered later, but at the time it wasn't.

No it was not.

As in, the changes being made to it make it a totally redundant ability.
I won't QM anyone if it means me losing mana on a raid. And a 20 min timer means I get to use VP probably once per raid cycle, which I will prioritise over QM.

I CAN'T CLICK LIKE ON THIS POST ENOUGH!!

My way to be relevant in group content is to ensure I can DPS better than a healer and DPS merc combined in a group!!

On raids, I want to be more relevant by helping (as someone else pointed out) using QM for a wizard in need, or using Glorious Judgement / Smite / Turn (depending on the target) to boost a burn.

Yes. It is. Many people paid real money for that item for the express purpose of being able to use in indoors. As far as all these people were concerned, THIS PARTICULAR MOUNT was exactly intended to be this way. Why did they think that? BECAUSE THEY ZONED IN TO LDON AND THEY WERE STILL ON THE MOUNT, unlike any of the other mounts available in the TLP game at this time. It is completely reasonable to think, then, that THIS PARTICULAR mount is special and thus they all decided it was worth dropping over $100 in DBG cash and/or krono to trade with someone else who got it in their own crate. So to retroactively nerf this isn't just nerfing a regular in-game item that costs nothing but time to get, they are retroactively nerfing an item people paid REAL LIFE MONEY to use.

Most of you probably don't even pay to play on Live/Test. Those of us on TLP do. AND we pay REAL LIFE MONEY to get things like bags, illusions, familiars, mounts, exp/clarity/DS/levitate/etc potions.

DBG needs to be up front about this nerf AND they owe refunds to all those people that forked over a LOT of money to get this particular mount. It's not the PAYING CUSTOMER'S fault that this was a coding error.

It's a real simple solution: leave the bears in game as is (usable inside), code future bears to work "as intended", just like they did with guise/mask and circlet.

It's astonishing how contemptuous many of you are to people who actually pay to play Everquest.

So after these people zoned into a indoor zone and discovered this bug or exploit, they immediately sent pm to devs and posted in the bug thread about this right? Or did you spread the word to friends and be very very quiet?

P.s. anyone that had the mount before knowing it was bugged has no claim that it cost them anything extra. And anyone that told people to obtain this mount owe them money, not dbg.

The majority of us on live servers pay for our accounts. And a large number pay for multiple accounts. On top of that, we pay for an expansion on all our accounts each year. Maybe it's time that DBG charges people for every expansion unlock on TLPs. They are doing additional work turning and such.

This was clearly a bug and people were foolish to rush out and spend real cash to exploit it. Did they advertise it as being special and usable in doors? You'd think if they added something so special, they'd market it.