Test Update 10/9/2018 - Patch Notes and Discussions

Discussion in 'Test Update Notes and Bug Roundup' started by EQ Dev, Oct 9, 2018.

  1. Sheex Goodnight, Springton. There will be no encores.

    Magepocalypse, how I’ve missed thee.
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  2. Ismel Augur

    Bug:
    - Enchanter - Dreary Deeds has been renamed Slowing Helix and the ability line has been changed to trigger the highest rank of your Helix line of slow spells on your target.

    at 110 this aa will not cast the level 103 helix, even if you have not scribed the 108 helix, scribing the 108 helix did fix this, but left me worried about lower levels being unable to cast aa slow.
    I was not able to do much testing as you cant delete spells.

    Feedback:
    - Enchanter - Added 3 ranks to Bite of Tashani and changed the ability line to trigger the highest rank of your Tashina line of spells on multiple targets.

    Please please please! can we have a single target version of Bite of Tashani
    I want to free up a spell gem like shamans and magicians.
    Yes I know class envy is bad but I could really really use that free spell gem a lot!
  3. Sancus Augur

    I sort of like the idea of using EU as a way to reduce the efficiency and increase the damage of our Magic spells, but I think it has problems in implementation.

    The biggest one is that this change does not make Magic any stronger than on live. It just makes them closer by making fire weaker. Usually the devs are averse to upgrading abilities that have previously been nerfed, so I'm a little skeptical that it's going to get some massive boost on beta. The only thing I can think of is if we're getting other significant Magic boosts (e.g. new Magic spells) that interact with EU.

    The second issue is that EU is only up for 3 minutes out of 15. Our issue with Magic damage is not burst or sustained specific. Our magic spells are fundamentally lackluster both in terms of power and auxiliary mechanics relative to our fire spells. They need a persistent damage increase, and our additional mechanics (theft of essence, conjurer's synergy, chaotic procs, etc) need to be less dependent on fire. The latter issue isn't really related to EU, but in theory EU could be used to solve the former issue if it didn't only apply to 3 minutes of a fight.

    One possibility would be to change EU into a passive, toggleable AA, a la Heavy Rain, but one that increases SPA 461 % at the cost of additional mana. Spell upgrades quite frankly aren't the most dependable with multiple non-level cap increase expansions, so I would like to have an AA that allows for more tuning of Magic spells.

    I'm trying to remain optimistic that this is part of some larger plan to increase magic damage, and that we will get compensation for some of this nerf in the form of either fire-based or generic damage boosts in beta. I don't think history really supports that optimism, though.
    IblisTheMage, kizant, Kuvani and 3 others like this.
  4. Cicelee Augur

    Blame the magician nerf on me. I was gone for 4 months, and you all were happy. First week back, and whammo...
  5. Gnomeland Augur

    Not even close.

    Biggest magepocalypse moments will always be pet nerfs. That's the primary reason people play the class, instead of wizards, since magicians are basically wizards + pets. As long as pets remain solid, the class will not experience mageapocalypse; in fact, the class was significantly worse than wizards for raw DPS for years, but people stayed with it because of pets.

    Although I will say that beasts probably have the better pets at the moment, when support spells are taken into account.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  6. Catashe Augur

    This a error or how does this change? wasn't double riposte always 5% a rank?
  7. Archonia New Member

    I once got a call from a recruiter. "I see you have Excel skills!" After biting back the tears that always come unbidden when I'm confronted with the fact that these air headed mouth breathers are the gatekeepers to all the jobs I need and want, I managed to ask if he had gotten stuck on the part of my resume where it says that I "excel at communication".

    That didn't actually happen. I'm just using it to illustrate the feeling I get when something of great importance to me is being controlled, changed and decided upon by people whose only required skill seems to be the ability to confront a mass of text by using a "match word" function, alternatively, "find and replace". (Like when you renamed actual tradeskill components plus their recipes not to bowstaves but to bo staffs, you geniuses. Try stringing a bo staff and tell me how far it shoots your arrows.)

    Let's talk for a second about the Unity spells, which seem most closely to resemble whatever it is you're thinking of doing. Ring of Scale introduced a Unity ability across the board, starting at level 75 (rank I, for 10 AA points) and ending up at level 110 (rank 8, for 220 AA points). Now, if I'm level 75 when RoS goes live, I'm completely spending 10 AA points to get a hotbutton for all of my self-buffs so I don't have to mem and then unmem them every time I die (especially if I'm a shadowknight) But if I were level 105 when RoS came out ... which, you'll recall, is the most that I could have possibly been at the time ... this is the very last AA that I'm getting, right before my Fireworks II Glyph. Why am I buying 7 useless ranks of an AA that casts buffs I'm no longer using?

    Let's get back to this forthcoming patch. I don't know why, but like segap said in #7, it appears someone on the developer team is trying to maximise the coupling of AAs with spells wherever possible, so that any AA becomes an invocation of a similarly named spell rather than its own ability. Why? Is this developer fond of pointers, or linked lists, or just symbolic links or shortcuts in file systems? Is there something this person finds irresistibly pleasant about making things be links to other things rather than their own things?

    As I said to my good friend upon seeing the incoming change to Scent of Terris, it's just a question of time before this same developer (or is it an intern, or a temp?) notices that there's a Death Peace spell as well as a Death Peace AA, replaces the AA functionality with the highest known version of the Feign Death line of spells, and gives it back its casting time and mana cost.

    (You can probably tell I've somewhat mapped out the head space of said developer already. When the above happens, our developer will probably notice that monks also have a Feign Death ability, and either decide to add mana to monks, or to give Feign Death a stamina cost equal to the mana cost it would have had. I KNOW HOW YOU THINK, DEVELOPER!)

    To those of you who are puzzled that things like these, as well as the server crash of yesterday, can happen when "they've been running the game for almost 20 years, you'd think they'd have learned by now"; they haven't been running anything for 20 years. I am willing to bet a more than averagely decent bottle of wine that the turnover is such that probably more than 95% of the people responsible for the game we enjoy so dearly have been affiliated with its operation and its development for less than 5% of its lifespan.

    (Also, expect Shadow Knights to be renamed Shado Knights, any day now. Any day no.)
  8. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    I'm mostly ok with making useless spells useful but this type of implementation really should have been done in RoS beta. In the future this is a pretty reasonable development choice as I can understand why it wasn't desired for Rangers and Beasts to loot one spell and voila the raid force has all rank 3's from those classes. As Ruven states, many Rangers have not rolled on all three spells even to this point in farm. In many ways, an app receiving a primary spell is preferrable over ranger buffs that won't be mem'd (save for the AC + DS line to buff NPCs).

    Therefore, the request to have RoS spells on the raid vendor is a reasonable ask. They really should have been there since beta but that is neither here nor there.
  9. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    It's pretty easy for them to see what they did wrong, anyway. Make the spells group spells again and they will work as they should.

    Edit: Turoq already posted this info in the bug thread, so hopefully we'll be good once this is patched. :)
  10. Metanis Bad Company

    Over the years the game developed a lot of quirky things. Your Dev seems intent on finding and eradicating such quirkiness.
  11. Daedly Augur

    Given the type of changes that i have seen since coming back to the game this past december, and the fact the type of things are being overlooked repeatedly, maybe its time to make some tweaks on how changes are approved BEFORE they get to test.

    I am thinking bringing back class representatives or some type of player council that can work with the developers to thoroughly vet the possible impact of changes to gameplay BEFORE any work begins on them?

    Or even something simple like,

    "In the future, we are looking at reducing the number of spells ingame by targetting spells triggered by AA to <insert reasoning>. We think we can accomplish this by consolidating many activatable AA's and by making them cast a similar existing spell from the class's spell book. Please take a moment to go through the following list and give us your feedback/concerns...

    List:
    Class
    AA
    Spell it will cast
    ...................................... we appreciate your continued support and participation in keeping Everquest the best it can be. Quest on my friends!

    Thank you,
    The Dev Team"


    The above is an example not a real quote!!!!!!!!
    Felicite likes this.
  12. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    So manaburns will now be completely blocked, wasting 70k mana, even if there is just one tick left of a previous manaburn debuff? will the cooldown be reset as well?

    Im not sure how to interpret the first bit though? Does the initial hit, now give full damage on all mobs(even low hp trashmobs) rather than "at most 25%" ? :confused:
  13. valiantSeven Elder

    Can any dev comment and say whether or not this was honestly a result of a discussion from the entire team? Or did one person just get to completely destroy an entire ability and be like oh yeah that looks cool, lets call it a day?

    It's beyond frustrating that there's never a middle ground... something is too powerful? Let's nerf it to the point where you might as well remove it from the spell book or refund it from the AA window! There's never testing... there's never gradual tuning... it's just boom, toast. I can't honestly believe that's the type of decision an entire team would come up with in the name of logic and balance and then justify it with WE LUV UR TEARS!!!!11 GET OVER IT, NUBS!
  14. Piemastaj Augur

    Actually, the developers probably did not know it worked on Fire spells (When it was introduced I mean). Much like they were unaware of how to properly boost pet haste instead of actually giving us a giant nerf. The major issue with AAs is the developer that designed 95% of them is gone, and Dzarn gets to put his spin on things and it would appear does not understand how they fully work.

    The fact we got EU was a shock seeing as it was never asked for. And seeing what it does makes sense that no one took the time to research what it worked on. Similar to most abilities that get put into this game, not enough research was done. And, instead of actually listening to the player base (the people who actually do the most testing), they would rather just nerf things and never own up and say 'whoops bad idea, sry bros'.

    That is how most things play out, it is just unfortunate that this would come on a non-level increase expansion where casters are ALWAYS much weaker. There will simply not be enough spells or AA tweaks to mitigate some of these losses.

    Kind of troubling seeing as this ability was essentially the only solid thing we got from a level increase expansion. Without this, we will be essentially where we were in EoK with some minor increases. I even made a post about it in Beta, before I saw the changes to EU.
  15. Riou EQResource

    no, it was 130% at max rank, now it's gonna be 30%
    Barton likes this.
  16. Siddar Augur

    Necro nerf is actually a raid nerf. The complaints of fire, magic, and poison spells/effects now being resisted will grow. AA scent of terris is why all those resisty raid events have faded away in recent years. This will put pressure on bards to pick up the slack.

    That is until they get around to nerfing bard proc that reduces resists by over a thousand. Oh the joy a resist complaints will return to EQ raiding. Soon followed by an increase in the number AE rampage mobs and the like. Makes me glad I've quit.
  17. kizant Augur

    Did anyone test this just to be sure? I would but I won't be back till Sunday. MB wasting your mana when its blocked is really the only thing that annoys me about it and what I wrote a bug about. I really couldn't care less about it being percent based or the effect overwriting or them limiting the number of big nukes at a time, etc. Just don't waste my mana. I'm pretty sure it happens at max buff limit too?
  18. Midasa Elder

    I think this is only a change in the description. It was always 5% per rank given the description that is still the old one on raidloot.com.

    Double Riposte (1) 59 WAR, PAL, RNG, SHD, MNK, ROG, BST, BER 3 / 3 - 1: Increase Chance to Double Riposte by 15%
    This passive ability grants you a 5% chance to perform a double riposte.
    Double Riposte (2) 59 WAR, PAL, RNG, SHD, MNK, ROG, BST, BER 6 / 9 - 1: Increase Chance to Double Riposte by 30%
    This passive ability grants you a 5% chance to perform a double riposte.
    Double Riposte (3) 59 WAR, PAL, RNG, SHD, MNK, ROG, BST, BER 9 / 18 - 1: Increase Chance to Double Riposte by 50%
    This passive ability grants you a 5% chance to perform a double riposte.
    Double Riposte (4) 62 WAR, PAL, RNG, SHD, MNK, ROG, BST, BER 3 / 21 - 1: Increase Chance to Double Riposte by 110%
    This passive ability grants you a 5% chance to perform a double riposte.
    Double Riposte (5) 63 WAR, PAL, RNG, SHD, MNK, ROG, BST, BER 3 / 24 - 1: Increase Chance to Double Riposte by 120%
    This passive ability grants you a 5% chance to perform a double riposte.
    Double Riposte (6) 64 WAR, PAL, RNG, SHD, MNK, ROG, BST, BER 3 / 27 - 1: Increase Chance to Double Riposte by 130%
    This passive ability grants you a 5% chance to perform a double riposte.

    It doesn't make sense that you would double riposte 130% of the time. But it does make sense that when you riposte, 30% of those will be doubles. I checked some raid logs from the last few weeks, when I knew I was tanking, and it does look like that is what is currently happening on live.
    And on group mobs, my logs show me riposting 3 or 4% of the time, so 30% of those should be doubles.

    Example from logs, riposting 5 times, 2 of which were doubles. The second one I riposted 3 times, 1 of which was double.

    [Sat Sep 22 18:10:11 2018] A mortiferous golem tries to hit YOU, but YOU riposte!
    [Sat Sep 22 18:10:15 2018] A mortiferous golem tries to hit YOU, but YOU riposte!
    [Sat Sep 22 18:10:17 2018] A mortiferous golem tries to hit YOU, but YOU riposte!
    [Sat Sep 22 18:10:17 2018] A mortiferous golem tries to hit YOU, but YOU riposte!
    [Sat Sep 22 18:10:20 2018] A mortiferous golem tries to hit YOU, but YOU riposte!
    [Sat Sep 22 18:10:20 2018] A mortiferous golem tries to hit YOU, but YOU riposte!
    [Sat Sep 22 18:10:35 2018] A mortiferous golem tries to hit YOU, but YOU riposte!

    [Sat Sep 22 18:17:58 2018] A sepulcher spectre tries to hit YOU, but YOU riposte!
    [Sat Sep 22 18:18:46 2018] A sepulcher skeleton tries to slash YOU, but YOU riposte!
    [Sat Sep 22 18:19:04 2018] A sepulcher skeleton tries to hit YOU, but YOU riposte!
    [Sat Sep 22 18:19:15 2018] A sepulcher skeleton tries to slash YOU, but YOU riposte!
  19. Ngreth Thergn Developer

    This thread is for discussions about the patch, not sniping at each or, nor about passive-aggressive attacks on the DEVs.

    Culling incoming.
    menown, Brohg, svann and 2 others like this.
  20. Archonia New Member

    [Emphasis mine]

    Then have the courtesy to discuss back, Ngreth.

    A fair portion of the upcoming changes are TERRIBLE {Ngreth - snip again unnecessary passive aggressive, bordering on aggressive. Could have stopped at "TERRIBLE"}.

    Could you elucidate about what's the underlying (or, at your option, the overarching) reasoning is?
    Ibadan Kun'Tirel likes this.