Stat Bloat

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Jimmy2times, Jul 27, 2019.

  1. Allayna Augur

    Good to know. Personal opinion, but Everquest is a fantasy mass multiplayer online role playing game and as such, taking away the fancy (fantasy-like) naming of spells diminishes the product and the experience.

    I certainly don't want to load up stun1, stun2, stun3, stun4....
    Duder, Whulfgar and Corwyhn Lionheart like this.
  2. Scornfire The Nimbus Prince

    I do appreciate the naming conventions of EQ, watching WoW streams and seeing these uber powerful PCs combating god level entities with "Fireball" makes me die a little inside
    Duder likes this.
  3. Brohg Augur

    The issue is that conventions can't hold long term. There are finite numbers of synonyms and distinctions are pretty effing arbitrary.

    Is there a lore reason can you explain why Pyre of the "Lost" is many times more powerful than Pyre of the "Bereft"/"Forgotten"/"Lifeless"/"Fallen"? Can you explain why in some number of the expansions, that same Pyre spell line belongs to some group or character that isn't anonymously gone?

    Kelador/Mori/Nos/Hazarak/Marnek/Jorobb were, one supposes, infamous and powerful necromancers to have their names on their signature harder hitting fire dots, but I defy you to explain without hitting up Alla's bestiary for their mob levels which was which or why one was more powerful than the other -- CLEVER TRAP ALERT Mori's name is actually attached to the OTHER spell line with the convention to be named after faceless groups.
    Lannin and Sancus like this.
  4. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart


    I think part of the naming charm is they are not always exact and precise. I agree you could use a naming convention that would be very utilitarian but as was said you lose some of the atmosphere. And yeah it would make it easier to readjust spell loads etc when levels increase but I'll take the fantasy feel over utility.

    And you can always look up spells via an empty spell gem slot which will list types of spell in level order.

    You could add an index to spell books that list all the spells by spell line. That might be a fair compromise if easy to do and not a memory hog of any kind.
  5. Tucoh Augur

    y'all can speak for yourself. Part of the reason I buy each new expansion is to see what kind of new combination of words that Ngreth et all come up with to describe these spell iterations.

    For berserker axes we've got mangler ,demolisher, brute, sunderer, savage, eradicator, annihilator, destroyer, bloodseeker, battlerage, hatred, rage, fleshtear, balanced, bonesplicer, corroded, deathfury, cold steal cleaving etc etc. What's next? I think Maimer, Hacker or Lacerator would be a good option, but "Axe of the Murderizer" is my favorite.

    What will be next for ranger's? I'm partial to "Boscagestalker's Enrichment"

    I bet a significant portion of our sub $ goes into buying thesauruses.
    Prathun likes this.
  6. Brohg Augur

    Nice try! I narrowed this down for you by only offering for consideration the above mentioned fire lines, but level doesn't get it done. There's background knowledge that will make this not much a puzzle for the professionals, but as a spoiler: if you picked anything other than the sixth dot on the list to fill this spell bar with the best spells, you're wrong:
    [IMG]

    Bonus pop quiz for the "it's so flavorful" crowd : without hitting up Alla's bestiary, who the eff is Mazub who has a level 103 spell on that list? 103 ain't even deep past stuff

    Bonus pop quiz CLEVER TRAP ALERT -- Mazub ain't even in Alla's bestiary! He's not in EverQuest!
    Sancus and Lannin like this.
  7. Lannin Elder

    Good to know. Personal opinion, but Everquest is a fantasy mass multiplayer online role playing game and as such, taking away the fancy (fantasy-like) naming of spells diminishes the product and the experience.

    So when you die in a raid and your getting rebuffed , your telling me you send tells for haste or clarity and ask for them by there current names?

    When you get tells for Brell's folks ask for it by it current expacs name verison of your buff?

    While I look into the lore behind the spells I personally get and cast , I couldn't tell you anything about the lore behind paladin buffs , and after 25 expacs it really seems like a trival thing to me personally.

    Not one time in this current expac has one person asked me for Speed of Milyex Rk. III , its always Haste.

    I agree item names , sure I want a cool name for those. Spells to me at this point are just a tool and if not coming up with time and cleaver names save a Dev even 5 mins of time , that's 5 mins there spending thinking or doing something else for the game. I remember a Dev telling my guild in beta they spend a good amount of time , and got a very similar story that Axxius posted.

    While this isn't stat bloat per say , and maybe should be in a separate thread , its still bloat that imo could free up time for better things.
    Whulfgar likes this.
  8. Brohg Augur

    the full suits of armor have adopted solid naming conventions at this point, too. [Expansiontheme] [Classname's] [Armorslot]. Scaleborn Legionnaire Vambrace - bam the naming's done for that. Ascending Sun Legionnaire Vambrace - boom the naming's done for that. Fire Bolt XVI Rk. II - POW the naming's done for that, and magician class leads / mentors-at-large don't have to further explain what spell they mean when telling nooberboober what doesn't work on the Doomfire boss. It become less obfuscated that Spear of Ro isn't actually an orphaned progenitor of Spear of Magma - Spears are a whole different spell line.

    Doesn't apply to every little thing. But core armor is named consistently, the same could (should) apply to spells.
    Lannin likes this.
  9. Whulfgar Augur

    My personal preference is anything that can help the devs push out higher quality expansions by any means they need.

    And those rare level up items.. are a 100% legit way to keep people tuned in to the expansion for longer haul then normal. That is all.
    Duder, Lannin and Brohg like this.
  10. Allayna Augur


    Brell's was probably the worst example you could have used as it literally starts with Brell's X X each and every version. So yes, asking for Brell's is appropriate.

    I'll use paladin as an example for the stripping of unique nomenclature from spells.

    Force of Mercy = Stun
    Force of Orthiss = Stun
    Force of the Timorous Deep = Stun
    Lesson of Expiation = Stun
    Merciful Force = Stun
    Dissident Force = Stun

    Mercy has a self only hott.
    Orthiss only works on summoned/animated/undead
    TD has a large amount of hate
    Expiation has a DD and is larger against summoned/animated/undead, also has a push
    Merciful is a basic stun
    Dissident is the only stun up to lvl 115 and does a group heal

    Each expansion release you all know that if you go and grab your spells you can basically understand very quickly what each spell does without having to open up and re-read the description due to the current naming system.

    I really hope you all don't cut these kind of corners in your professional lives.
  11. Brohg Augur

    Is Force of Mercy the name you like? or Force of Ardency, or Force of Reverence? pick your favorite, or take a poll so all paladins get to pick their collective favorite. Then the upgrade is Force of Mercy-or-Ardency-or-Reverence II Rk. II. Problem solved, all set!

    The only inheritor of the name "Stun" is Force of Timorous Deep. It 4s stuns for level+3, with a 12s cool down on timer 5, exactly as describes its ancient progenitor, Spell: Stun. Force of Timorous Deep already is exactly Stun XII. Nothing else is, and so nothing else would be named that way. Because that would be stupid. Only stupid people would do that. Only stupid people would think it would be done like that.

    Names aren't reductive, they're just consistent.
  12. Allayna Augur

    [IMG]


    It's laughable you think anyone in the eq community would be able to agree to a "best choice" name for each line and then have "Lesson of basename #" for example.

    And they all stun. They all just have various other abilities tied to them for the various lines of stun. I was using an extreme example since people seem to think this would be an easier task than it is currently.
  13. Brohg Augur

    The community doesn't have to agree. I don't care if they agree. They don't agree on the current naming - they're not even asked. Only one Lead Developer has to like the name, since all that would have to happen is a name be chosen, and stuck with.

    That all the spells you've picked out do stunning as part of their effect is much less specific than observing that nukes deal damage. I hope you'll grant that no one has suggested all damage spells should be named Damage Spell. The fact remains, and you have yourself observed, that spell lines do exist. Buried somewhere in nearly all of them is a spell that has an appropriate name for its line, like, yes "Stun" for the line of exactly 12 spells that does exactly and only that. The suggestion is that when an appropriate name exists, renaming that same spell for its new level is a waste of effort nearly all the time, and occasionally makes things worse as it obfuscates lineage.
  14. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    This thread is full of nerdgasm. I approve.