Test Update 5/10/2022 - Patch Notes and Discussions

Discussion in 'Test Update Notes and Bug Roundup' started by EQ Dev, May 9, 2022.

  1. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Undo things that cause many times the calculations per second then adding 100 or so more dots every 6 seconds? With a full raid casting and procing you are going to get well over 100 additional procs and checks every second compared to a possible 100 dots every 6 seconds.
  2. Qimble Augur


    Has your guild been running the emote away and not using LoS? LoS into a building makes survivable possible with current raid mechanics because your healers can be inside a safe zone during moonfall and still inside heal range of you. The proposed change makes saying in range of healing the entire time you're running the emote away a non-option.
  3. Ngreth Thergn Developer

    No. we are still chasing this as we have been unable to reproduce the issue
    Actually yes. Ogre Heritage crates this month.
    No.
    We are also considering if we want to restore this. Long term or not is it an infinite mana source.

    No. Changes are being considered but did not happen this patch.

    ----
    We reversed the changes to Free the Goranga. You will be able to hide.
    We made the change in the first place due to player feedback, but decided that there was enough feedback the other direction to NOT make the change for live. It will return on test next test true-up.
    Jennre, Allayna, Hobitses and 13 others like this.
  4. Cadira Augur

    On reclaim:

    Alright but that's the whole point of monster summoning costing so much mana and the conjuerers synergy AA increasing the yield of reclaim :p
  5. Sancus Augur

    If you don't restore this, that decision needs to be made in conjunction with adding an alternative source of returning mana for the Magician class. The combination of high mana cost Monster Summoning and Conjurer's Efficiency were intentionally added in Empires of Kunark to address our mana problems following A) the rain nerf and B) stagnation of our mana return abilities. No one thought we needed "infinite mana," but we did and do need an active, in-combat method of restoring mana that increases our sustainability. That's especially true considering one of our sources of mana, Elemental Conversion, has now been broken for three years despite code finishing the SPA to fix it a year ago.

    To restore any mana via Monster Summoning + Reclaim in combat, we have to summon our pet (to fade it), suspend our pet, cast monster summoning (which had its cast time nerfed), cast reclaim energy (done via a click), and unsuspend our pet, during which time we do no damage. The mana return for that time investment is about 35K net (45K - 10K), which is in line with (or worse than) a number of alternative mana return abilities in game (some of which take less time and therefore have a lower opportunity cost). The ability to chain restore mana is unique and extremely powerful, but it involves exiting the fight for upwards of a minute to restore modern mana pools. This is essentially an expedited, raid-usable OOC. If you (collectively) deem that shouldn't exist, I think that's fine, but again it needs to be replaced with something that does fit the original need.

    In addition to actually fixing Elemental Conversion, one possible solution would simply be to add a recast timer to Monster Summoning while also A) increasing its mana cost (and therefore mana return) and/or B) significantly decreasing its cast time. It's fine if we can't chain it, but we do need an option that provides a reasonable mana return for the time investment. The pre-preservation mana cost on Spear of Molten Luclinite is up to 10K, which is roughly 6.5K post pres. While this is our highest mana cost ("standard") spell, 35K additional mana only affords about 5 additional casts, and there is a DPS cost to any time spent reclaiming rather than DPSing. Mana return abilities need to keep pace with spell costs, and that means that a limited use ability with a cooldown needs to provide more than five spells worth of mana or have a smaller opportunity cost.

    There are other alternatives, like significantly boosting Gather Vigor (same changes - increased mana return and decreased cast time) or reviving the Thaumatize Pet line, for example. If those changes were implemented, though, an alternative purpose for the Monster Summoning line would be needed. A 15K mana pet with terrible stats has no value to anyone if it can't be reclaimed for mana.
  6. Cicelee Augur

    What raid is a magician going OOM on?

    Personally the only time I ever use reclaim is after a raid wipe and I don't want to sit and med, or if I am in the group game and I don't want to OOC med. Not sure how and when other magicians were using reclaim, of course.

    I agree that Elemental Conversion desperately needs fixed. It is beyond frustrating to click it and nothing happens to my mana bar. And Gather Vigor, it would be nice to see that bumped up. I mean they gave us a type 3 for it this expansion (I don't ever recall a type 3 for Gather beforehand), so I get the feeling that devs are considering us using it.

    I do feel that as a magician we do have quite a bit of mana recovery tools at our disposal- mod rod, self mod rod, symbiosis, conversion, Gather, self buff guardian/Druid buff, various clickies, augments- outside of reclaim. Whether mages use them or not falls on the mage. And yes it would be nice for reclaim to work again since that is the sole reason for Monster Summoning. But Conversion getting fixed should be as high, if not higher, a priority IMHO.
    And if mages were using reclaim for infinite mana then we have those mages to blame for the devs considering removing reclaim from our class.
    Ibadan Kun'Tirel likes this.
  7. Sancus Augur

    Do you not play outside of raids? Raids have a multitude of mana returning abilities that benefit all classes. It's a select few that encounter active resource issues on raids without dying; the vast majority do not go OOM or OOE during raids.

    Mana consumption without that massive support is extremely asymmetric between classes, and I run out of mana frequently and consistently in group content.
    "Using reclaim for infinite mana" is doing exactly what you described here:
    OOC is also "infinite mana" as used in the context of this discussion.
    Edit:
    We have a lot of distinct mana recovery abilities, but the potency is severely lacking in the absence of monster summoning. 92 mana per tick from Symbiosis or 86 per tick from Guardian would take more than 7 minutes to recover enough mana to cast one Spear.
  8. Qimble Augur

    Not a mage, but my understanding is that the reclaim energy thing makes a substantial difference in their ability to contribute meaningfully after a death or if their raid force is low enough DPS that fights drag on for *much* longer than they do for a t10 guild, especially when you add on the fights that have mana drains elements.

    I suppose that is more of a philosophical question though, do they balance classes around the few top guilds that can put out 50m+ DPS and have nearly ideal play consistently across their whole raid force or instead do they balance around average raid force? Especially in a patch that was a massive buff to dot classes, it would be nice if they did something for mages.
    Winnowyl likes this.
  9. Ngreth Thergn Developer

    And the feedback is useful in our decision.
    My "No" is only about it being fixed for this patch, NOT a blanket no we won't fix it.
  10. kizant Augur

    I mean if you really want to estimate things I'll do a quick one while I'm typing this because that fix was never that impactful for reducing lag. The proc change applies to like 9 procs? but I'll estimate with 10 for easy math. Now, I average around 60% twincast rate during raids and using a high estimate for proc chance of 50% you would expect about 3 procs per cast. I'm casting spells about once every 3 seconds so that's 6 procs per tick. Only Wizards and Mages are going to do about that much. Enchanters, Necros, and Druids assume maybe 1/2 that at most and Rangers were hit pretty decent so I'll count them higher too.

    With 3 caster groups and 3 rangers it comes to around 90 additional procs per tick. Add in a little for other classes and let's say 100 per tick just like the 100 DoTs per tick you mentioned. It seems pretty similar to me plus less spell effects apply to procs so you would think they'd be a little faster to calculate compared to a normal spell. While I don't expect the change to ever be reversed if one can be done for free then it seems reasonable that the other could too. But this was a quick estimate and maybe I'm off. If I'm not then it's basically just trading one feature for another. Hopefully, faster buff lookups improve performance in less obvious ways so it ends up being a gain but I guess we'll see.
  11. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Thank you Dev Team, much appreciated.
  12. Cicelee Augur

    Your initial post talked about reclaim being raid friendly, so I interpreted that as magicians were using it a lot on raids. It shines in the group game, where a magician can go from 10 mana to 100 in 60-90 seconds.

    I am usually not in a hardcore OMG everyone is min/max playing 110% of their capabilities group. We like to chat, we like to be successful, we like to get things done. I find if I am using all my tools at my disposal, that I usually don't have to go the reclaim route. Besides I usually have a suspended pet that is raid buffed, so I rather not lose that.

    I didn't quote the rest of your post, but I agree that from a mana regeneration perspective, reclaim is far and away the best. And TBH it is, I don't want to say niche cause that is the wrong term... but how often is this really being used to provide "infinite mana" for most magicians? As I mentioned, I use it after a raid wipe when everyone is meddjng. I can get to 100 mana quickly and then take a couple minute break while everyone else is medding. Me doing reclaim in that scenario is not improving my DPS or creating infinite mana- just gets me to 100 quicker than others is all.

    I just think this talk of infinite mana using reclaim happens few and far between. And not in a situation where it provides an unfair advantage for a magician.
  13. Plumbus Lorekeeper

    Imagine being a druid or ranger and seeing someone concerned with losing their 5th mana recovery tool lol. Not that you shouldn't fight to keep your stuff.
    Allayna, Sprooce, Evye and 3 others like this.
  14. Oakenblade Former ForumQuest Champion

    - Sad druid noises -
    zleski, Allayna, Hobitses and 3 others like this.
  15. Sancus Augur

    Yeah, to be clear - nothing in my initial post was specifically oriented towards raids, and I personally use it a few times a year in raids at most. I only mentioned that it could be used in raids (whereas OOC cannot) to avoid omitting a beneficial aspect of MS + Reclaim as part of the comparison.

    EverQuest balance isn't a zero sum game. I completely agree that we have fewer mana issues than Druids/Rangers (and Beastlords), but I don't think the solution to that is for other classes to be brought down to the lowest common denominator. And, to be fair, this is one of our primary (if not our primary) mana recovery tools. Pure quantity doesn't do justice to the importance of each.
    Igniz, Winnowyl, Barton and 2 others like this.
  16. Svann2 The Magnificent

    Bards could use some mana lovin' too btw.
    Nniki likes this.
  17. Jumvapace The Most hated


    This is sad to me. Negative feedback is given astoundingly more than positive feedback. I'm sure there are those that are happy with the change too. The most vocal complainers about this change are ones that don't' have a good strategy for how to deal with this. You don't have to run across the zone, you don't have to farm 300 DA clickies for every toon, heck you don't even need to leave the fort. We don't need 'easy mode' EQ. Instead maybe ask for advice on how others would/are dealing with it. This is a community, so talk to others.

    Personally I prefer that it not be blocked by LoSight. My only thought about the mechanic is that the large aura around the person can sometimes get in the way of being able to see the protective auras. This is mainly seen, and only an issue, when shackle emoted people have to just run to a building. Their aura still covers the event area and makes the purple auras extremely hard to see.

    .
    zleski likes this.
  18. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    As a Berserker I too want better Mana recovery methods, oh hang on that was the beer & hallucinogenic mushrooms talking.

    Mana recovery options should be there for the classes that need them but they also have to be balanced against intended use & take into account buffs & boosts from your group or raid team.

    Like if mana users are more handicapped for recovery in groups than raids have an ability which cannot be used while inside a raid zone that restores some mana, there's your group deficiency sorted.
  19. Qimble Augur



    We all know how famous the everquest community is for widely sharing information about different strats to beat events.
    zleski, Hobitses, Metanis and 2 others like this.
  20. Jumvapace The Most hated

    After races are finished? 0 problems.