Thank you all for the continued feedback regarding the next TLP, Oakwynd. We want you to know we hear you, and we’ve been carefully monitoring your comments and suggestions. By no means are we done so please continue to keep it civil and keep it coming. Here is what we’ve already decided to change based on your feedback: We will change the account lock for Agents of Change instances to be character based instead of account based. Note, this rule will be attached to the Legacy Characters Ruleset, so if future servers get the Legacy Characters Ruleset, they will also experience this change. We will make it so No Drop items that are NOT Free-Trade No Drop will automatically be Heirloom items. This does not affect items that are already Heirloom, they will stay Heirloom. Note, this rule will be attached to the Legacy Characters Ruleset, so if future servers get the Legacy Characters Ruleset, they will also experience this change. We will combine Omens of War and Dragons of Norrath to open on the same day (with the normal one-hour gap). This change is for Oakwynd and there are no current plans to apply this to Yelinak. We’re also working on an FAQ specifically based on your questions and feedback about the Encounter Locking feature. Here is just a small part of what we have so far (and once we have more, we will update you here): Q: What is Encounter Locking? What is the goal for Encounter Locking? A:The Encounter Locking feature will allow the first person that engages an NPC the ability to prevent others from interfering with the fight. A primary goal with adding this feature is to mitigate issues we've seen regarding kill-stealing and training in the early TLP experience before content becomes more instance based as the expansions unlock. Q: How is the lock applied? A: The lock is applied to the first player that gets added to an NPC’s hatelist. This could be via a player attacking the NPC directly or the NPC attacking a player. Q: How is the lock removed? A: The lock is removed a short time after the NPC leaves combat. If someone on the lock list attacks the NPC within the period before it unlocks, the countdown will be reset, and the NPC will remain locked. Q: Can members be added mid fight to the group or raid? A: Yes. The lock is owned by an individual player. The group or raid that they currently belong to is the one that “owns” the lock. Players that are currently in the same group or raid as that player will be able to attack. Those that are not will not be able to attack. Q: Will this prevent assisting/helping other players? A: No. If a player would like assistance from someone outside their group or raid, they can target the NPC and use /yell. This will semi-unlock the NPC and allow anyone to attack it. Once unlocked using /yell, the NPC cannot be locked again until it leaves combat, and the original lock is removed. Q: Will there be any changes with how loot or experience is awarded? A: No. Loot and experience will be awarded to the person/group/raid that does the most damage to the NPC. Q: If a player dies while pulling an NPC, can it be locked by someone else immediately or does it need to revert back to its spawn point? A: If an NPC no longer has anyone on its hatelist and leaves combat, it will unlock in a short time whether it is at its spawn point or not. Once it is no longer locked, it can then be locked by anyone even if the NPC hasn’t reached its spawn point. Q: How will I know if an NPC is locked to me or someone else? A: Once an NPC is locked, its name will show as green if you’re able to attack it or grey if you aren’t. These colors will be player-editable if the default colors aren’t desired. Q: Will the Encounter Locking apply to all NPCs, or will there be exceptions? A: There will be exceptions and some NPCs will be excluded from the Encounter Locking feature due to them requiring cooperation amongst different people or being part of events that wouldn’t be completable if the NPCs were locked to separate people. Q: Will the Encounter Locking be on the Test Server before it goes to live? A: Yes, we are planning on enabling Encounter Locking on the Test Server in the May Test Server update. The feature will be turned off on the Test Server once Oakwynd launches. Again, we appreciate your passion, patience, and feedback. There will be more to share in the coming days and weeks so stay tuned. - The EverQuest Team
Will experience and loot remain locked to our FTE champion if they unlock the mob with /yell or does it become a DPS race at that point? This method has no mass aggro share, it has to be cycled and /yell must be fired off per mob?
Thank you so much for that, can you also ask them to combine PoP/LoY/LDoN into 1 because that is one of the main spots for attrition in guilds.
Is Encounter Locking or Legacy Characters (or both?) the experimental feature that may or may not go to Live?
How does FD pulling work with the locking? For instance, on my SK I usually cast a snare, and then when the adds are clear I stand up, and have only the one mob left. I then drag to camp and kill.
Will players that are currently locked to an encounter be able to receive buffs/heals from outside of those locked to the encounter? If yes, will players that heal/buff a player in a locked encounter be added to the hatelist of the encounter? if yes, will the mob attack them and the player not be able to fight back? if no, what is to stop players from exploiting this by using an ungrouped set of healers that never need to worry about drawing agro?
With these changes this is a very good ruleset that will be extremely popular imo. Love the heirloom loot. Been wanting this forever. I do see a problem, though. If you allow people to be healed from OOG then this will not end afk AE PLing and it will also be exploited for other purposes. Chain heal a wizzy oog = win.. Guessing this will be addressed because it has to be.
Can I suggest this be moved to the TLP forums and stickied with the current feedback thread locked? This way this can serve as the new feedback thread now that people know what to mostly expect.
Any thoughts on allowing people to link accounts to take advantage of these legacy benefits between them?
"We will make it so No Drop items that are NOT Free-Trade No Drop will automatically be Heirloom items." This is fairly pointless. Re: FTE - the FAQ does nothing to dispel this as anything but a horrible idea. Greifing is still paramount. Way to not listen to your consumers. Server is DOA.
This is the real question here. If this really is to ease KS-ing why not just do the less weirdly confusing way, and just implement open tagging?
Q: If a player dies while pulling an NPC, can it be locked by someone else immediately or does it need to revert back to its spawn point? A: If an NPC no longer has anyone on its hatelist and leaves combat, it will unlock in a short time whether it is at its spawn point or not. Once it is no longer locked, it can then be locked by anyone even if the NPC hasn’t reached its spawn point. This looks like feign death training is still possible albeit after the mobs unlock after a "short time" instead of immediately.
What's to stop a chanter from locking an epic mob down for 24 or more hours with a mez in this system? Do you realize how much toxicity first on aggro locking will cause? You're effectively encouraging the group game to become even more toxic than it was before on competitive servers with this.
"We will make it so No Drop items that are NOT Free-Trade No Drop will automatically be Heirloom items. This does not affect items that are already Heirloom, they will stay Heirloom. Note, this rule will be attached to the Legacy Characters Ruleset, so if future servers get the Legacy Characters Ruleset, they will also experience this change." I'm a bit confused here - what are Free-Trade No Drop items? Does this just mean items on a Free-Trade server that never get set to Free-Trade and instead just keep a No Drop flag, such as Epics?
Huh? No-trade becoming heirloom is awesome. Combined with raid lockouts per char not per account allows main changing based on what's needed and more importantly means that if you have an item you earned it. Assuming FTE is tweaked to remove exploits, this is the best ruleset I've seen yet.
Appreciate the response. Was personally hoping for another, non FTE server option this year, but it's nice to see that DPG is listening and willing to change some things.
"Q: Will this prevent assisting/helping other players? A: No. If a player would like assistance from someone outside their group or raid, they can target the NPC and use /yell. This will semi-unlock the NPC and allow anyone to attack it. Once unlocked using /yell, the NPC cannot be locked again until it leaves combat, and the original lock is removed." This seems like out of group PL will still be possible as long as the puller is in the group being PL'd and players use /yell to unlock the mobs once they arrive at the killing zone. Sure it may be a bit harder as they have to cycle through all the NPCs and use /yell fairly quickly, but I doubt that will deter them.