Producer's Letter: Torment of Velious Beta [Discussion]

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by dreamweaver, Oct 16, 2019.

  1. Orbital101 Augur

    Just saying there enough of the older content and GMM to gear up your toon adequately to do TBL.
    Marike and Bahdah like this.
  2. Pano Augur

    He is saying you should learn your class well enough and you'll survive.
    Marike and Bahdah like this.
  3. Benito EQ player since 2001.


    Not sure if it's supposed to be translation of Orbital's post but, in fairness, he included a numerical value of "6" box team and not "I completed TBL progression it with my well-played group-geared SK and healer merc."
  4. Time zone Journeyman

    So Officer of my guild wrote;

    Dev post in Beta...

    All About Rankless Buffs

    Our decision to make spell buffs rankless is probably the biggest functional change we're making to spells for this expansion, so I wanted to take the time to post information about why we made the change, the decision making behind what we changed and didn't change, and to get some feedback to see if we missed anything.

    What's happening?
    Starting in ToV, we're making all long term player buffs have just one rank. This rank is as effective as rank III would have been, and will continue to get upgrades as though there are multiple ranks in the future -- just all in one step.

    All of these spells will be available on vendors along with all the rest of the rank I spells, which means that as soon as you reach the level you're able to cast them, you can use the best buffs that are available in the expansion.

    Since rank II and III of these spells will no longer exist, the rank II and III runes that grant the spells will have fewer spells to give out. It doesn't appear that any class will drop below 5 needed runes per level due to this, so hopefully it just means there's a little bit less need for buffing classes to spend that first rune on buffs every time (or get yelled at for NOT spending their first rune on buffs).

    Why?
    Ever since we added spell ranks back in The Serpent's Spine, there's been a great deal of conflict around buffs. If you're a grouping cleric and someone joins your group with raid buffs on them, you just can't do anything for them until those buffs wear off. There's a long period after new spells are available where people have a mix of levels and buff ranks, and it gets really confusing about who can land what on whom.

    For the first time in the spell line's existence, we don't have to allow the cleric spell haste buff to stack with older versions since there's no longer a point where you would get more benefit from rank III of the old buff than rank I of the new buff.

    Finally, and selfishly, the interaction between cleric, druid, paladin, and ranger HP buffs was just not fun, for players or developers. Getting stacking to work correctly for all the ranks of those four spell lines regularly took more time than it takes to make spell upgrades for an entire class. Reducing the scope of the problem to 4 spells rather than 16 is a huge help.

    Why didn't you just remove all ranks from everything?
    We still believe that spell ranks in general are a good reward in personal power for conquering group and raid content, so we limited this initiative to just the things that caused the most conflict.

    By limiting the number of spells that are rankless, we keep nearly everything we like about having ranked spells (further opportunities for character growth). If we were to expand the scope of things that can be rankless to the point where some caster classes need fewer runes per level, that would be too far.

    Why did X become rankless? Why didn't Y?
    Here's our heuristic for making buffs rankless:
    Is the spell beneficial?
    Is it meant for players (not only pets)?
    Does the spell last an hour or more?
    Does the spell target other players (Targeted Other or Group)?
    Does the spell NOT have limited counters or cumulative caps?
    The first check is pretty obvious. This is a buff-focused initiative. The second check is what excludes pet buffs like Burnout and odd effects like pacification. These are mainly personal power and we still feel that personal power is a good driver for seeking loot. The third check is where we lose stuff like Savage Growth, HoTs, and bard songs. The fourth check is where we lose self buffs -- again going back to personal power. The fifth check is where we lose runes, proc buffs, limited-use high-power damage shields, and other effects where you need the buffing class to be present and active.
    What should we be testing?
    In particular we want to make sure that Unity-style combination buffs still function correctly, AA, worn, and buff focuses function correctly, and that we don't introduce more complexity in our effort to reduce it. I also want to make sure that any combination buff that now only casts rankless effects has been made rankless itself. Please use this thread to ask questions, report bugs and problems that you find, or let us know if you have found other buffs that meet the above criteria but aren't rankless.
    Time is of the essence here. Once I begin making the reward sets for ranks II and III, it will be time-prohibitive to change any more spells.

    Wht does this mean for other classes

    So only the 4 classes are getting rank III upgrades or all buffing classes, or is everybody getting RK. III, What about previous expansion spells, will they go to Rank 3 too? [IMG][IMG][IMG]
    Saer-tse-tao likes this.
  5. Sokki Still Won't Buff You!!

    The recovery tokens cost less than the perfected distillers, 50-100 DBC per recovery token depending on which pack you buy vs 250 DBC for 1 aug distiller.

    I recently had a similar experience with disappearing items. I looted a glowing spell rune during RoS but it disappeared from my bags, the GM replaced it quite quickly. Maybe it just depends on which GM you get I guess.

    I agree that CS isn't the same as it use to be but it actually has gotten a little better recently. When Daybreak first took over CS went to pretty much nothing, it was a waste of time to petition about anything as nothing would get fixed. At least now they will help out on stuff even if it's not to the original level.
    Yinla likes this.
  6. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    The F&F bundle is worth the price. The only thing that I would say that I think that they should have added to the bundle is a tradeable Personal teleport clicky.

    Start a guild.
  7. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Making the Player Buffs Rankless while keeping other spells ranked is a fantastic Idea.

    Anyone have a handle on which player buffs that will apply to?

    Any plans to make this change retroactive eventually?
  8. Eladamri Journeyman


    I am still missing the answer =(
  9. dreamweaver Community Manager


    Closer to, this was missed. Sorry Eladamri. Each tradable in the friends & family pack item is tradable until claimed. Once the item is claimed it is bound to the account that claimed it.
  10. Eladamri Journeyman



    But the question is: how often am I allowed to ask for a tradeable expansion?
  11. dreamweaver Community Manager


    I'm sorry, I guess I don't understand the question. If the expansion is claimed on your account then you would not be able to claim the same expansion again because you will already have the expansion. Is that what you mean?
  12. Jaylnn Gnomish Bog Jogger

    I think he/she is asking either How many times it can be traded before its claimed. If the first trade locks it down, or if its like Kronos where it can be traded around until its redeemed.

    Or they are asking how many times they can ask for to get a copy of the tradeable expansion to give out.. which would be once. And you get it on launch day
  13. dreamweaver Community Manager

    It can be traded until it is claimed. So I supposed as long as no one claims it as many times as you want.
    OrchardField likes this.
  14. Eladamri Journeyman


    And how many copies of the tradeable standart expansion do I get when I order the F&F- bundle?
  15. Marton Augur

    One.
  16. Eladamri Journeyman



    Hmmm….
    F&F bundle = $249,99
    Premium + Standard =$ 139,99 + $34,99 = $174,98

    $249,99 vs. $174,98 with nearly same benefit for all who are just interested in upgrading own accounts is a quiet easy question.....

    Thanks for the answer, now I know what bundle is best for ME.
    Yinla likes this.
  17. Indian New Member

    I am sorry but the Friends and Family is NOT worth the cost. I can buy three collectors editions for less than 1 F&F and the money is better spent. Jacking the price up so much, just to add a couple of trade-able items is pure greed. As far as the extra mounts go, none are faster than my current mount. So there is no point in paying extra for something I will not use.
  18. Indian New Member

    to the moderators of this forum...can you please stop changing my name?
    I have been posting to the forums since 2000. I am not a new poster.
    I have never changed my name, but I have been labeled as Quaand, Quaand2, Percy, Fishbait, Lawrence and now, Indian.
    I have no objection to Quaand or Indian, so please settle on one of the two.
    thank you
    (whatever my name will be for this post)
  19. Nennius Curmudgeon

    So that was you??
  20. Riou EQResource


    Friends and Family is worth the cost depending on what you want out of it, if you do "shady" stuff with Krono (which can push the bundle towards "free" in the end), or you buy Krono from DBG you should get more Krono selling the pieces to people in game, then that amount of $ gets you Krono from DBG themselves


    If you're just buying it to pay 1 time for 2 "halves" for your boxes or something its definitely not worth it
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.