Did the architects of this ruleset really consider raids when making their plans? It seems like enchanters/bards will always be without the ability to mez/charm raid content as they won't have access to spells that can hit raid-level mobs. This means doing emp ssra without rapture. If you can't kill emp, no vex thal. Rathe council without any mezzes- yikes. No rathe council, no plane of time. The final fight in Txevu is typically done by spawning adds until you get the one that's charmable, then using it to kill Zun`muram. Not on Vaniki! No Txevu clear means no Tacvi. I'm certain this trend will continue through most expansions, right? If the current level caps on mezzes/charms/stuns remain in the game, enchanters will be nearly completely relegated to being buff boxes for raid content and many raids will likely not be possible until the level cap increases.
Did the author of this post read the Vaniki ruleset before posting? "To make these goals more attainable, many level restrictions will be relaxed on this server, allowing players to use items they normally could not and land spells on NPCs far above your level. Zone level restrictions will also be relaxed, but not removed." Spells will land on mobs at a much higher level than they previously would. Zone restrictions will be relaxed. We don't know the exact details of how that stuff will work yet, but there's mechanics in place that could easily allow charm/mez to land on much higher level targets than usual, and there's mechanics in place that may mean the Emp Ssra isn't needed for VT, or Txevu isn't needed for Tacvi, etc. We'll just have to find out together.
Saying altering the level of mobs that charm or mez can affect is speculation. Given the exact phrasing, they said land spells higher than previously possible. To me that commonly would be understood as not resisted, not altering the spell data. Given the track record of oversights, and the demonstrated unfamiliarity with older content, this is an oversight. It's an interesting take that raids might unlock without standard progression milestones. Challenge indeed!
Not to cross post or anything, but this is from me - Skyp in this thread. I had to post under this alias because my other account required moderation approval apparently. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/vaniki-suggestions.281949/page-4 You can guarantee the mez/charm level requirements will be unaffected by the current proposed changes by devs, this will be an additional thing they will need to fix, among other things. The proposed changes will effect resist levels of PCs casting on mobs, it will not effect hardcoded things like level requirements. IE mobs will likely assume you're a higher level then you actually are when casting. Some suggestions to improve Vaniki: Your team needs a significantly better write up on Vaniki - right now a lot of people are confused at the idea/concept of the server and can't fundamentally comprehend how or why it could be fun. - Loot Rules: Give it double loot and free trade. Do NOT give it Mischief RNG loot rules, the RNG will ruin the concept of the server. Most guilds will be banging their heads on real difficult content and they will want to reward people for their success. Often times guilds will be forced to use certain raid compositions and will likely have to exclude certain classes/individuals depending on the fight. It would be nice if people sitting out were not excluded from looting gear. Especially considering the speed of the server. - Server Rewards: Post a complete list of the rewards/achievement requirements as soon as possible to draw more attention to this server, also consider allowing people to claim it on Vaniki and +1 other server. Or make the rewards Heirloom/claimable # amount of times on any server. The reason for this is because people who want to continue playing on this server will want to claim the rewards as soon as possible, but will feel discouraged if they feel the server is a vanity server that doesn’t have longevity. o You should have rewards for every era/expansion, if people feel there is a gap between eras in rewards, people will be less likely to log in and continue playing if that carrot is not readily available. - Changes Required: Significant Issues o Cazic Thule and Innoruuk will likely be non-classic versions on this server, you may want to consider moving the achievement to Plane of Sky (Eye of Veeshan?) instead as reverting them back may break something. o Do something about LDoNs, if people feel the best way to get gear is by grinding thousands and thousands of LDoNs at level 40, it will immediately turn people off from the concept of the server. People will always take the path of least resistance in the game. The idea should be to go out of your realm to try real hard content. o Review the Shadowknight Harm touch as it gets reverted to OP status in GoD. You do not want everyone to roll SK’s to steamroll hard content. o Review level requirements for Mez/Charm – consider fights like Rathe Council where mezzing is an absolute requirement… or bring 300 people… o No Losing levels upon Death Perk – Consider disabling this or adding a 30 minute timer on use. Consider fights like Avatar of War, where you can all bind at the Wakening Lands zone in, pull him to zone in and zerg him down with no fear of losing your level. (There are a lot of fights you can do this to, this is just the most obvious one). o Consider Allowing Out of Combat regen on day 1 – There is going to be a significant amount of wipes in this game and it would be great if people didn’t have to med 30-45 minutes per attempt in classic. This isn’t classic raiding where you slap buffs on a tank and you’re good to go, these will be fights where everyone is going to be required to be fully buffed. This will also encourage more people to roll casters so it doesn't turn this server into melee quest. Lesser Issues o Epic 1.0s – some of these are level restricted, meaning you can’t even complete it unless you’re a certain level the ones that stick out are Rogue and Monk. Consider removing the level requirements or reducing it to level 40.
This is only true if you are raiding content way beyond your level. You are not required (or even expected) to raid Gates of Discord at level 40/50. Gates of Discord is unlocked, yes... But that is largely irrelevant as far as raiding goes. Why have Gates of Discord unlocked then? To unlock Berserkers, to unlock spells, to unlock AAs, to unlock various other content. This is not a Time Locked Progression (TLP) server. This is a Level Locked Progression (LLP) server. When Skuz initially thought up and recommended this LLP type server... he did so originally while suggesting all expansions be unlocked (if I recall correctly). Would you expect to raid lvl 120 content at lvl 50 just because it is unlocked? Of course not. Simply raid at the pace and tier you and your guild desire and are capable of. Your suggestion of allowing mezzes at a higher level is a consideration that DayBreak could make if they have the desire/ability to do so. But this server would be fine without it if folks just raided content designed around their current level lock.
While we can't be certain what the achievements are going to look like, the premise of this server is absolutely not "go at your pace." It's having mechanics altered to artificially have players attempt raids at lower levels than typical and offering rewards for success. Calling out the mechanics that they have quite obviously overlooked or are unaware of will make this misguided premise at the very least approachable. It's a reasonable assumption that they were assuming a cheap, quick fix to resist rates which wouldn't affect mez and charm spells, and that they would set up unattainable achievements, which would lead to emergency fixes, which would lead to bugs and exploits.
Let's raid 70 content at 60! But, we need to wear level 70 gear. And our spells need to work on level 70 targets. And zone level restrictions need to be reduced... Change enough and eventually you're just raiding content like normal with someone changing the level display from 70 to 60 and pretending you're special.
Pardon my ignorance- how can you earn the promised account-wide achievement rewards for completing much higher level content if not by raiding content beyond your level? Please, clarify this for me.
Exactly so. At level 60, with all the 70 content open you can: Raid the 60 content (Vex Thall) Raid the lower tier 65 content (Grummus, Terris, Paffa, Carprin...) Multi-group some mid tier 70 content (Nest, Stoneroot, Hive, Eldarr) Full raid upper 70 group content (Sverag, Relic)
I would imagine that the achievement chasers want to "achieve" something that not everyone can easily do... so that their hard to get title (as a reasonable example) is a cool thing that they can show off. I would also imagine that the Gates of Discord bosses achievement probably won't require you to be level 40 or 50. And, if it somehow it does (very unlikely), no one will get it (so who cares?)... and if only one elite / hard working / smart / massive guild can pull it off... well, they earned it didn't they?! Getting that cool title a whole level-lock earlier than others will probably make them feel good. This can be a server for the super elite / massive guilds. But it can also be a server for the regular players and guilds too... Simply by only raiding just a little bit above your level lock. Killing Nagafen with nothing but level 40s is still pretty cool and fun and might still earn an achievement of it's own. Seeing something out of reach (due to various limitations - such as mez/charm level requirement) can be hard for a perfectionist to accept. But if you are patient enough for the level lock to increase... you will eventually take down that boss that has eluded you
By doing it when it is a bit closer in your level range. Doing Planes of Power at level 60 (instead of it's intended 65). If you can do it earlier: more power to you! But you don't have to (and may not be able to at all... and that's okay.) Just gotta wait for the level cap to increase to when you can.
You can't do rathe council without the level 64 enchanter mez Bliss which won't be available until The Buried Sea expansion is unlocked- that's eight expansions of content beyond Planes of Power. Do you really think that was a consideration? SO much great raid content will be made completely obsolete under the current rules.
I understand where you're coming from, and if I play on vaniki this is how I would plan to approach it. My biggest gripe with the server is with the alterations they are making to spells and gear. I've raided anguish in out of era defiant gear before. Guess what, there aren't any upgrades. You're literally raiding just for the sake of raiding. That would be exacerbated with access to SoF group gear, assuming it's wearable with the changes they are making. There is literally no gear incentive to raiding aside from minor cases for select classes. So what would the point be? Not trolling, I'm trying to figure out what's going to motivate me to log in for raids, as someone not chasing achievements, when my character will be much more powerful from gear that randomly drops off of random trash mobs.
The Idea is to allow for a greater degree of challenge by having content able to be tackled that would not normally be unlocked at the level progression caps. You can still attempt "level appropriate" raids, but also ones that are from the next tier or two of content above your level - in places where some things like Mezz & charm will simply not be possible perhaps, there may very well be raids that are simply impossible to beat as a result and others that will be exponentially harder to beat but still possible with some tactical changes or even completely different strategies than are normally used. Of course with the way spells normally work you would do almost no damage to a mob which is significantly higher in levels so that has been adjusted for. The disparity arises because while melee can perhaps on this server wield weapons more powerful than they normally could casters spells, which are basically their real weapons are going to be inferior if kept at only being used at their usual level. Maybe the answer here is that weapons are not relaxed in level requirements to be usable at lower levels in order to be fairer to casters. Keeping the "bonus" being non weapon items having lower requirements. How the devs ameliorate that caster issue remains to be seen, re-working the way spells interact vs levels on this server helps the spellcaster stay useful against higher level mobs than usual, though against their "level appropriate" mobs they will be performing much better than usual perhaps. Maybe spells with level limitations will be able to be used below the usual level requirements, mezz, charm, maybe not, and you will have to work without them if you want to bag a victory over a much higher raid.
In all fairness, one of the points of this server that was highlighted was doing content over your level. When I read that, I took it to mean all content. Not just raids. I think it would be kinda fun to go do Juggs in Seb at level 40 with a group of 6. Gonna be next to impossible without mezz/charm in the tool bag. However, if DBG is simply adjusting the resists on NPCS (both raid an regular), without taking into account other restrictions on spells (i.e. hard level limits on mezzes and charms), then they're forgetting about an important concept of the game. Now, maybe this is on purpose, and this is actually what they intend. However, I'm guessing its more of a "whoops, we didn't think about that!". I'm also curious how level 40 achievements will work for PoH and Sky, when wizards can't port you until lev 46. It is easy enough to make that a lev 40 spell, I would think. It would also be easy enough to make the mezzes and charms work on higher level NPCs.
Well said. This highlights an area Ive briefly considered but discarded. Since we wont be in such a large gap for long, so i dont see this being problematic. Mezz makes encounters easy anyways. Typically a 10 lvl gap is present throughout. We are only forced into more than that on the initial lock points. I assume this is under consideration of players doing classic content at 40, when its normally done at 50, while giving players beastlords and zerkers. The consequence is extra content is open that would unlikely be capable of doing and this theme wont continue. I do not think players will be intended to complete much content , at least not end game content, more than 10 levels above. It will be fun to try some things though!
Did the architect of this post consider it doesn't matter? Emp Ssra wasn't balanced for level 40s, figure it out Rathe council wasn't balanced for 40s, figure it out The final fight in Txevu wasn't balanced for 40s, figure it out In summary, figure it out.
The extra challenge should really be coming from doing these encounters with the lower stats associated with doing them at a lower level, not breaking intended fight mechanics revolving around mez and charm. Just taking the level restrictions off mez and charm globally wouldn't really work either for obvious reasons. Ideally they'd somehow remove the level requirements just off those specific raid mobs intended to be mezzed/charmed, but who knows if they'd even have the ability to do that or the desire to go back and tune all that old raid content.
The Emp isn't that hard to figure out, kite the adds and give Rage of Ssraeshza the DT treatment. He doesn't hit as hard most Velious raid bosses if you manage Rage, will just take 5 days to kill. Life just sucks for the kiter.
