Discord AMA Question Thread

When Daybreak purchased the IP from SOE, they acquired all the assets for EQNext/Landmark. Will Darkpaw be doing something with those assets in the future ... yes or no? [you do not have to elaborate since I know you cant]

First Question:

Can we have a discussion about removing/reducing all the really harsh racial NPC abilities on TRASH mobs?

Not a complete list:

[52383] Foot Stomp (Giants/Golems) = 155,175 DD + Fling
[52384] Leap (Wolves) = 125,165 DD + Fling
[52385] Pounce (Wolves/kobolds) = 155,175 DD + Fling + stun
[52388] Knee Crack (Dwarves/Orcs) = 115,185 DD
[52390] Ragged Swipe (Drolvargs) = 95,165 per tick DoT (uncurable)
[52391] Ragged Slash (Drolvargs) = 155,175 per tick DoT + 80% snare (uncurable)
[52394] Creeping Pus (Mummies) = 81,111 per tick DoT + 25% snare (50 Disease counters)
[52395] Crawling Pus (Zombies) = 115,135 per tick DoT + 20% snare (50 Disease counters)
[52398] Foot Stomp (Tizmak) = 125,175 DoT + 50% snare (uncurable)
[52402] Gore (Mammoths) = 125,167 per tick DoT + Gravity (uncurable)
[52407] Spider's Bite (Spooders) = 145,165 per tick DoT + 1515 mana drain (uncurable)

and on top of those pretty much anything can also cast:

[52373] Restless Ice = 71111 per tick DoT + 911 Mana drain (50/60 curse counters)

Group geared players have ~250k HP, and raid geared is ~350k. Tanks have about 50k-ish more.


The problem should already be obvious at this point, but just to make it more clear:

1) Any of those with a snare/gravity is basically a death sentence for anyone trying to pull more than a couple feet.
2) Any of those with a DoT + Restless Ice DoT is basically a immediate death sentence for anyone.
3) Any of those with a DoT is *still* basically a death sentence for anyone trying to pull more than a couple feet.
4) If you accidentally aggro 2+ mobs (regardless which ones) it is basically a death sentence because each npc casts immediately on aggro. (Aka, you can't simply "split" them).

There is nothing inherently wrong with racial abilities, it's the way in which these have been implemented that make them simply not fun.

To put it simply: There is no way to "counter" them. You simply get hit by them and then have to eat it. A few of them have counters that can be cured, but not everyone has access to curse cures and even disease cures are limited. Most of them you can do nothing but pray and hope your healer is paying attention. And if you have a Mercenary healer you're probably F****d anyway.

Empires of Kunark did it perfectly and that should be the example for how to do them.

1) Kar`zok NPCs had a really powerful AE, but one that could be *blocked* after doing progression.
2) Sarnak NPCs had really powerful buffs, but they could be *dispelled*.

These are the way to do it: allow us to counter/block the abilities somehow instead of it just being a death sentence.

This leads me into my next question:

Can we have a discussion about the disparity in survivability between tanks and everyone else?

In addition to the above dealing with spells, NPCs hit for massive amount of damage (40-60k PER HIT, with 3-4 hits per combat round). If you aren't a tank you're going to get wrecked REALLY fast.

Let's talk about some disparities here:

1) Raid geared tanks have ~10k AC.
2) Tanks have:
2a) Stances to passively cut the damage down by large chucks
2b) Multiple long term (1-2m+) Disciplines which stack with stances and which can be rotated so something is always active.
2c) Spells/combat abilities that have infinite uptime and stack with disciplines/stances.
2d) Multiple procs of defensive spells that stack with all of the above.

Everyone else has:

1) Half of the AC tanks do (maybe a little more depending on specific classes.
2a) No stances
2b) Limited short duration (<1m) defensive abilities (if any).
2c) Limited defensive spells (Shield of Order line has stagnated really hard vs NPC damage and Enchanters are the only ones with runes that aren't useless to cast).
2d) Few to no defensive procs.

Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying every class should be able to tank equally well. I'm just saying the disparity between those who can tank and everyone else has become as wide as the Grand Canyon and this is bad.

Dying in literally 1-2 seconds to a trash mob is bad gameplay and it is NOT fun.

Removing focus effects was a bit over the top. Can we get them back for the new TLPs?

Could we get a decent UI editing tool? Maybe even update the entire system to ease 4k+ issues.

There has been criticism about the way experience is earned in ToV. Some of us dislike the idea of forced progression, myself included. Will this trend continue into future expansions?

To reduce the impact of groups / raids of semi-automated players kill-stealing / monopolising spawns 24/7, etc, would you consider either creating "locked pickzones" or enabling instances with the same base pop as the static zone and same respawn timers?

i.e. you zone into an EW instance, all trash is up. Kill some trash, chance of named spawn. No easier / harder than the static zone except that it removes the (on some servers very high) likelihood of some diving in and kill-stealing.

Note: current pickzone approach in some zones reduces this risk... but what we're seeing is that said groups have a scout in any given pickzone, so they can switch picks to grab spawns

With ToV raids (and group content) being increasingly based on burst dps, can the septic wounds line be looked at? I wrote a post a while back about this located here:

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/lets-revamp-the-necro-wounds-line.262808/

I proposed that the line be consolidated down into 2 spells (so the burden of switching out 5 wounds spells becomes only switching out 2) and in that thread it was also suggested that the base duration of the spells could be shortened to make them viable for more raid content. I think either adjustment would be a welcome improvement.

Which class is the worst to deal with? As far as comments and feedback from the player base.

How’s the work from home situation? Are you finding it easier or more difficult to get things done? I’m finding it difficult at home with coordinating, communication, and then family obligations.

1. I know this was asked during the FoH AMA. Will we see The Burning Lands Part 2 for the next expansion or thereafter?

2. What illusions are planned for the Heritage Crates?

3. Can you sell 'Cowl of the Dreadlands Yeti' and other beta illusions in the future?

4. Will we see new player houses like the Bixie House or Wayward Lady?

5. Will we see Velious Texture Helmets as ornaments?

6. Can we see Gnome Monks?

7. Can you add Ultron's Ultimate Unattuner to the marketplace?

Is account to account transfers ever coming back?

What is the current plan to address the debuff problem on raids?

Will we ever see any new race/class combos? There were a few popular runner ups such as iksar berserker.

Is the Necro/sk dot revamp still happening or has it been cut?

Will we ever see new AA lines or is it just new ranks to existing AA lines from here on out?

What kind of UI improvements are in the works?

Are there any plans to improve other heroic stats to be more useful such as heroic strength?

Are there any plans to increase heroic character levels? I don't believe a level 85 will be able to group with a level 120 and get xp when the next level increase happens.

What kind of future overseer rewards can we expect to see? Currently there are no worthwhile rewards.

Is it possible to add a second stat criteria to bazaaar and find item windows? Sometimes I want to search for an item with AC and hdex and be able to sort by their values if that makes sense.

1. Is it safe to assume that the necro dot revamp is dead at this point? Even if it wasn’t a total revamp I think many of us would be happy if we just stopped being the 3rd best dot class behind two priests.

2a. Are there any plans to bring casters back into balance post luclin for the new tlp? After kunark they become middle tier at best and by late pop they are essentially useless for 6+ expansions. Bringing melee back down to vanilla levels would be preferred to buffing casters to their level because content is already trivial due to power creep. On any given fight casters do 1/2 the damage of melee during gates/oow/don/dodh/por era and over the course of an entire raid it falls to 1/4-1/3. Currently during that era the worst dps classes in the game are the 4 caster classes (3 of which are supposed to be dps casters) and clerics. My guild raids with 6 casters on a roster of 54 because the imbalance is so bad by ddoh... and 3 of those are enchanters. Every other caster rerolled monk or zerker on corinavs slow xp because it was so disheartening.

2b. Can the passive damage auto granted aas that increase melee damage be disabled altogether or at least delayed on tlp servers? Focus affects we’re removed for being to powerful and out of era yet melee keep passive aas that increase their damage by 20%+ by kunark while also having out of era access to triple attack. If these aas were delayed until at least gates and then released more slowly over time there wouldn’t be such a huge disparity between classes. Everyone is tired of seeing 20 monks in a 50 person raid(and by omens 15 monks and 15 zerkers). If they can’t be disabled can something similar be added to casters to allow them to be playable beyond level 65(I realize they catch up 6ish expansions after the dodh era but that’s a long time to have almost 1/4th of the classes in the game feel useless and unplayable).

3. Can a passive aa be created that tones down hand to hand numbers back where they should be in era. It could be added at level one and be disabled when pop unlocks. It would drastically reduce the disparity between monks and other classes for the first 3.5 expansions and also make monk weapons have meaning pre luclin.

4. Is there any way the new tlps could start with berserker and beastlord. Even if they can only be races that existed prior to their launch and if their epics can’t be completed until luclin many of us would still love the chance to play the classes in an era we’ve never been able to play them before. The idea of a berserker doing naggy or fear in era seems very fun and could bring more people to the servers.

1. With the Nerf to AE abilities for melee classes back in The Broken Mirror, is there a chance the Monk / Rogue will get the AA Rampage ability, so we can contribute to AE damage. if not, is there a chance we will see an improvement VIA more ranks for our AE ability (AA) to see improved %'s (25% of your dmg as AE is insanely weak and has truly crippled the abilities use since the the broken mirror nerf) Destructive Force and Rake's Rampage

2. Debuff slot on a mob increased or more Consolidation for Dot classes.

2a. consolidating/adjusting Combat abilities that trigger a dot/debuff to be a DD ability instead.
few Examples:
Bite of the Asp (BST AA)
Jugular Cut (Rogue Ability)
Slash (Rogue Ability)
Cacophony (bard AA)

4. Guild Window Interface / UI: Can we please see an upgrade / improvement / added filters of this window.

Examples for new Features:
a toggle to hide Individual Ranks (currently you can only hide players marked as Alts)

5. Raid Loot Distribution. option to crate the loot from the raid chest and have it placed into your inventory to be opened and distributed later. perhaps add a 10 hour expiration timer to it or i'm sure you could come up with an idea that's better implemented to the idea.

5. Raid loot in general. with tradeskill gear being the best option these past couple expansions and the growing theme. is it possible to just have chests drop Muhbis (tradeskill gear), Spells, then maybe add more currency reward per event win (currently 10 currency per win) perhaps increase the currency per win or instead of a bunch of random items extra in the chest, just drop 1k currency in the chest that could be distributed.

so raid chest drops Tradeskill Raid item, Spells, 1k currency. I say this because it would be much easier to distribute 1k currency (or a currency = to RNG items in chest, however you would wanna do it to add to the randomness of item costs)

Is there a potential of extending the reduced lockout timers for 2 or 3 weeks to make it useful to raiding guilds who normally raid Sunday?
Currently we raided Sunday so have lockouts. We will raid Sunday again, so cant raid any night this week. Next week , reduced timers will go away before we could raid or else have lockouts for next Sunday's raids. I think the intentions are awesome, but doesn't work out well for guilds who raided Sunday night before the announcement Monday morning.

Also,

Is it possible to have separate disc timers for Pureshot and the ranger melee disc. Since they are discs they couldn't be use at the same time. but when pure shot fades or is in cool down, rangers could use the melee disc.

1a. Do you feel the current Heroic Adventure scaling implementation aligns with the original goals of the system?
1b. As it stands, same-max-level expansions share the same monster levels and abilities - to wit: TBM HAs scale to EoK difficulty, RoS HAs scale to TBL difficulty, and so forth. Are there any plans to make another tuning pass on the HA scaling changes?

Can we please get a little more than the standard scripted answer about "that program we can't even talk about or mention" and other types of cheating and hacking? I really don't know why it's so hard to have an honest, no bull**** discussion about this.

I'm sorry if this sounds too much like I'm trying to be an internet tough guy, but it's getting beyond nauseating listening to Holly and a host of community relations personnel telling us how much they appreciate us, how much we're the reason for the game still continuing, how much we're valued, blah blah, only to be more or less given the cold shoulder by customer service when it comes to trying to keep the integrity of "our" game intact.

Sathir's Tomb has to be responsible for over 90% of the pickzones created across all servers. It's nothing but bot crew after bot crew using "that program" to AFK power level and get krono and plat to just turn around and sell for cash. You have people that poof out of thin air on top of a collection piece or on top of a rare mob just to kill it right in front of you and then poof away right after they loot it. There's an entire guild made of 20 people that use "that program" to fill their raids with Bers Mages Shamans Clerics Chanters and Warriors to beat raids that normally would not be beaten in such ways thanks to "that program."

If you report them, you can't even tell if it's read by anyone. Most of the time it's moved to a solved petition almost as soon as you send it, and if you're lucky you'll get some kind of scripted reply full of crap about what happens next. If you are lucky enough to win the lottery, a bot crew might be suspended for a week when you notice them not in their normal spot 24/7. If it's a normal day, they are allowed to continue doing what they are doing as if nothing is wrong. They get to cheat and break the rules and do whatever they want while the players that actually play by the rules are on a short leash to never touch them, train them, take their kills, or bother them in any way.

I really do feel appreciative and thankful for the work and communication the devs have on these forums and about the game, but the "hush hush" nature of Customer Service where they seemingly answer to no one and ignore players whenever they see fit is kind of going directly against all the transparency that is created on these forums and by our devs. It really feels awkward being treated like the redheaded step child just because you petition someone clearly breaking the rules.

Here are the questions I would like to see the answer too.

What are some potential causes of server instability? Is there a list of prior server outages, their causes and resolutions?

When a server goes down, what's the process for bringing it back up?

Is a crash rate of more than one every two days considered acceptable?

1. When can we get a fix to the multiple times per week server crashes on Mangler? Are you aware of the issue and unable to fix? Or still determining the problem?
2. Why are you adamant to not fix DZ lockouts when your server instability screws guilds for a week?
3. Why do we have to pay full price for a month of subscription, but get less than a full month of service? It is exceedingly rude to provide crap service, and then ignore or tell us to piss off by not compensating lost XP and lockouts.

1.) Would you please consider making the necro pets and lich line use the old models on TLPs up to the point that they were changed (skellies and specters)? Is this possible or at least a petamorph wand option necros can get? The new specter is particularly disliked by the community.

2.) I know this is a long shot, but very few troll beastlords like the basilisk. Is there any way of making it the old crocodile? The basilisk isn't thematic for trolls in the least as swamp dwellers. If there is an issue with the old croc model, consider making the warder something more swamp themed (mosquito, new croc model, snake)?

3.) Is there any chance of tightening up on true box servers with a new boxing server coming out? Perhaps a no box server? The server that shall not be named stays strong in part because group play is alive and well because boxing isn't allowed.