Alliance/Covenant - overwriting fix

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Mookus, Jul 16, 2019.

  1. Jaedo Journeyman


    I just wish it wouldn't waste so much endurance when I hit it at the exact same time as another monk late in battle when end. is so vital and I'm already struggling to maintain any.
  2. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    I couldn't agree more. I've disliked this spell since the day of conception.

    For the love of Tunare, figure out a way to add counters to the debuff so these spells can stack.
    Yinla likes this.
  3. Sissruukk Rogue One



    I did this with the rogue alliance/covenant. Just have to get the other rogues to use GINA so I can push it out to them.
  4. Dropfast Augur

    This really needs to happen!! I hate to break it to some of you, but having a Gina trigger does NOT solve all the issues with Alliance. 2 people can hit them at the same time but only one will land AND their has to be an open buff slot for it to even land! Even with gina triggers and/or a rotation, many Alliances get wasted.

    You should not get a recast timer if it doesn't land, just like others have said in here. I love the idea in general but it is horribly flawed right now. I don't care if it's an AA or spell but getting screwed out of this damage frequently is very annoying.

    Not only that but some of them need reworked badly. Monks for example is a joke. Even with 4 + monks all on the same mob and sometimes even with speed disc going, it still won't Proc at times! The small damage proc monks get needs it's proc rate doubled at the least. With 4 monks all hitting the same mob the hole time it's on, it should NEVER not go off...

    Rouges Alliance procs in about 1-3 seconds AND they don't even need one other rouge to Proc it. That is not right at all. Meanwhile, Monks can't even get a fulmination at times with 5 monks going ham. It's really a bunch of crap considering how powerful they are. ( This is NOT a call for nerf to rouges alliance, but rather a re-balance of the horrible ones like monks. Their are a lot fewer rouges than monks, so theirs should be easier to get off. However, rouges getting theirs off by themselves and monks not getting theirs off with 4+ monks is bull honky. ) This is just one example, I know their are other classes with this same issue.

    Devs please consider re-working some of the bad alliances and fixing the getting a recast timer when it doesn't even land issue. Love you long time!
    Jhenna_BB, gnomeboss, Yinla and 3 others like this.
  5. Horyuken Augur

    Alliances will be what 3 expansions old when the next one comes out? Don't waste time tiring to fix something broken just morph it into a working system. And yes dropfast is on point, the level of coordination for the monk alliance isn't not viable in the constructs of EQ, it's just bad design. While Rog, and shaman (was nerfed because it worked to well and ate up server cycles) are so stupid easy to trigger it requires 0 skill or timing. I have no clue why a cleric would ever use theirs in a raid setting ? and they don't work for groups so I'm not sure why they have one?
  6. Moldar Augur

    My main is a Ranger and personally I have been in a handful of guilds that have tried Rotations of 1 form or another.

    I understand not wanting to have all casters use the same basic soandso begins to cast x and require all of the spell spam to be turned on. Frankly it causes me to lag out a lot to parse everyone & I am more of a fan of knowing when something actually lands versus somebody casting something

    I can't count the number of times I have tried using an audio trigger like {s} begins to cast Wildstalker's Covenant and it never lands, get interrupted, or otherwise doesn't land on the target. So I made a different trigger that is " {s} is targeted by a wildstalker's covenant " and I have never missed an alliance or accidently cast over an alliance since.

    It works for Wizards as well! just take the following: " {s} becomes the target of a frostbound covenant " additionally you can make a 24-s timer for it and also have another trigger such as " {s}'s frostbound covenant is resolved " to let you know when it has expired so you can immediately follow it up or let your buddy know to cast theirs early.

    As long as there is a general rotation going it should all work out, just be aware that spells such as "Claw of Qunard/Travenro" have a small (6%) chance to reset the cooldown of most spells (including Alliance spells) and may throw unknown variables into rotation order, it will be up to you and your wizard team how to handle unexpected variables such as that, but generally knowing when the mob is debuffed with something with a "rough" idea of what the cast order is better than solely relying on a Wizard to click a social hotkey / have everyone rely on parsing ALL other casters to have an idea of when to cast their Alliance. (just my 2 cents)

    Does this fix the whole 2 people hitting Alliance at the same time? No it doesn't, but frankly from my experience I have seen a pretty drastic drop in the # of Alliances getting wasted from the fact that either it didn't land, didn't blow up, or has faded, and I know they are supposed to only last 18-seconds; however, good old EQ has that rolling tick crap so I ALWAYS add an extra 6-seconds on there so I know that if the timer bar goes out it should have expired less than 6-seconds ago, does that work from a min/amx perspective, not really, but it is better than potentially wasting it.
    Skewert likes this.
  7. Horyuken Augur

    Having to use a 3rd party tool, that is no longer in devlopment, and is closed source just so you can maintain some game functionality is really good spell/game play design.
  8. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    In game audio triggers work just as well.

    The day EQ requires me to use GINA to play is the day I quit.
  9. Conq Augur

    Talk to other players? I'm not saying we do it the right way or the best way. But each class is responsible for calling their alliances as well as calling CoP4, Auspices, Celestial Regens, the druid AE healy thing, etc. I require rezes to be announced because I hate wasting my time on a failed rez attempt. Gina is great. Audio triggers work. But this stuff was all being done previous to even chat channels. It was by communicating with other players.
    Conq
  10. Tucoh Augur

    This is what I did for my berserker group:
    {s1} is targeted by a mangler's covenant.

    I also have timer bars for each valid bladestrike so I can monitor the progress to fulmination:
    {s1} hit {s2} for {N>20000} points of magic damage by Mangler's Bladestrike.


    And I have one for when the covenant resolves/fulminates/triggers (that also ends the bladestrike timers):
    {s1}'s mangler's covenant is resolved!

    That plays this sound file:
    E:\eq\tools\ut2003\cstrike\sound\misc\ut2003\AnnouncerMain\multikill.wav
    http://doktor.haze.free.fr/counter-strike/ut_sounds/ut2003.zip


    It really is fun. No idea how well it works on raids with lag / debuff limits / range issues.
    gnomeboss and SoroxDrinal like this.
  11. Mehdisin Mahn Augur

    you literally outlined how you could do this without 3rd party programs.... just because you and your fellow wizards are too lazy to use a flippin' chat channel doesn't mean you MUST use a 3rd party program... you could always, you know, cooperate with one another.... talk to one another... in a massively multiplayer online role playing game.... I know it's a novel concept....
  12. Mookus Augur

    Um, I didn't just outline how .. I explained that we do.

    We had everyone make an announce in our wiz channel and then /cast social button. And imo, it works. But as I was saying, its like cat herding. Between lag, some people announcing in the wrong channel, and lately some boycotting the entire thing... it broke down. We have 7 wizards at some raids, usually 5.

    You're "talk to one another in a mmorg rant" aside - my point remains.... the spell should reset and not block.
    Yinla likes this.
  13. kizant Augur

    Chat channels will definitely be too hard to use once you get over 4 or 5 wizards. Audio triggers is really the only way to go and even that would start to breakdown at 6 or 7. You'll end up losing DPS from constantly starting/stopping your casting. So, even if the spell gem did reset I think it would be a problem and I'd ask some people to stop using it at all after a certain point.
  14. kizant Augur

    Just thought of something that may be a little crazy. What if casting an alliance over another alliance somehow triggered an automatic fulmination while also overwriting the buff? Would that be OP in any way? I guess if the whole raid is doing that at one time it might be too much damage too quick. hmm

    OR what if it worked like that but there was a also a disincentive for other people to overwrite your alliance?

    Like if two alliances land in a row then the first one does the full 3121559 because 0 of the 8 counters had been used. But if you fulminate an alliance with regular spell casts that are given the additional 55699 damage to the other wizard, that amount could be taken away from the fulmination. If 8 spell casts hit giving out an additional 445942 then the fulmination would be for 2675967.
    gnomeboss likes this.
  15. kizant Augur

    Basically try to come up with a scheme where nobody is going to want to fulminate someone elses' alliance while still allowing it to happen with possibly a small penalty because it's better than getting a spell blocked or wasted.
  16. Syylke_EMarr Augur


    Might be easier to add an incentive to properly fulminating. Maybe if you're the one that triggers the final fulmination, you get a short duration buff that increases the damage of your next alliance (by a meaningful amount). But allow overwrites to trigger the fulmination damage, without the recourse buff. Or could go the other way, and improperly fulminating triggers a negative recourse the reduces the damage of your next alliance. Or maybe both. I like both, tbh.
  17. Cimbaeth Elder

    I do have a window setup and minimized with everyone's spell casting going to it. I do have audio triggers and Gina for someone casting it and it fulminating. However, the real pita is that as range casters, Gina mostly does not pick up on that when too far away, nor do audio triggers so (I'm in guild with Mookus) I spent most of last raid night(and yes everyone has rk 3 and there were 6 wizards) having Covenant bounce every single time I cast it even when I was close enough to the NPC to hear an audio trigger go off for a fulminate - It bounced!! Tonight with 6 wizards most of whom aren't doing a key button chat channel spam key - which also has issues with chat lag anyway- I bounced alliance probably 90% of casts. We did have a rotation at one point but because some wizards cast slow as hell (like the first guy in alpha order not casting til 30+ secs into an encounter) this caused super drama and then others getting pissy because alpha order meant that the first guy would get more casts (if he ever cast the damn thing). The Alliance spell for wizards anyway is a anti alliance hate fest.
  18. Cimbaeth Elder

    Just to be clear I HATE Alliance. Also, Rebels.
  19. kizant Augur

    Move closer. Casting from range isn't a requirement it's a feature to use only when needed.
    Sancus likes this.
  20. Scornfire The Nimbus Prince

    Do you have a timer bar to show you when it's on a mob and which one? I find that pretty helpful. 6 Wizzies is roughcity though