EverQuest Producer's Letter July 2022

I understand that 100%. finally someone actually responds to the issue, rather we like the answer or not its nice to hear something on this issue.

Appreciate the comment but the team needs to understand timing is everything. Balance being addressed based on snap shots in time from 8, 10, 16 months prior is how we often end up in this mess. They can't balance stuff very well when its endless knee jerk changes from data from months or years prior.

For instance right now necromancers are far ahead of everyone else due to 2 main reasons. First there are far to many long duration multiple target events. Second was because two different devs handled an issue based on what was happening from a snap shot in time months-years prior. Dzarn changed an dot AA line to help fix necromancers who had not yet had a dot revamp. But he then applied it to every other dot class who already had dot revamps by Aristo, furthering dot power for druids, shaman, sk's, bards, etc. A year later, and like 5 years after starting, Aristo finally got around to revamping some necromancers dots and here we find ourselves. They double fixed an issue for all dotting classes pushing dots way way out ahead which is amplified even more when you have 5 targets endlessly. Then the new AA dev continued growth for that AA line in ToL when it should have been left alone. Timing really is everything.

Just like melee are behind currently and yet many caster fixes are going in from issues from 8 months or year ago. Only adding to the gap due to poor timing from delayed class balancing.

No one, well maybe melee, wants to see melee get a huge boost in the next expansion to even things up relatively. Only for dot nerfs to then land 5 months after that based on todays data rather than current data after the melee boost to then put dotting classes well behind for months to a year.

Timing is a huge part of balancing and the current process or place in the food chain isn't working.

I mean……. Most of us understand issues are not going to be fixed overnight, with that said, if your class falls behind it takes years to see any adjustments. Some classes still haven’t seen any help (monks), wizards got some love this expansion finally but even that was not well thought out because every caster class got the same love when it wasn’t needed. And now berserkers have been nerfed down to monk level, so I for one am not optimistic at all that we will see any meaningful increase in an acceptable time frame. I do hope that I am wrong but from what I’ve seen these last few years I doubt it.

Can you please bring back the old school way of gaining exp?! Just going out there and grinding mobs in different zones that actually give good exp.

Upgrading Heroics to 100 is a waste of resources. You should of gone to 110 just like EQ2 does 5-10 levels below the cap. EQ is 20 + years old like 1% of the players are pre 110. If a heroic is designed to get someone right into the game where the players are 100 does not do that. Even 105 would of been better so you could taskadd to TOV/COV tasks and help out. At 100 you cannot do that.

They want people doing the content they create. Incentivizing that by making the XP way better its smart and works. That said I just grind the levels out the old way still.

Agree big time. 100 heroics will be too far behind when they are released. And the problem will only be worsened with the next level cap increase.

Rain of Fear increased the level cap to 100. It was released in 2012. That means that heroic characters are boosted to being...*drumroll* only 10 years behind!

Agreed. New shirts before the other stuff please. A full clothing line would be preferable.

That stuff is probably the low-hanging fruit that the newer staff can work on, or just gets done because it's an easy item to check off the to-do list.

Personally, I am not a fan of class balancing. I have had the nerf bat so many times, I don't wish it on anyone. My biggest issue is lack of content. COV and TOL were 2 very small expansions. Not that many zones, only 4 missions. Almost the complete elimination of group quests. No TradeSkill quest. No evolving items.

To make up for it, you have slow to kill mobs that have low hunter spawn rate and low collectible drop rate (probably due to mobs dying so slow). Every expansion the AA upgrade to existing lines cost more even though our AA gain rate is static. Instead of making it take longer to complete the same amount of content, add more content like we saw in TBL. 4 missions should be the minimum. Better yet, 4 missions and a series of heroic adventures that are friendly to less than full groups. Mid year quests really aren't that interesting, put some of that manpower to make the expansions larger.

Overseer/Achievements are handled by Ganzito, who is also the systems designer responsible for AAs.

Scheduling tradeoffs like that (Edit: And, certainly, a lack of manpower overall) contribute to why classes have been so stagnant for a very long time. The progress that classes did make was largely the product of Dzarn (former AA dev) putting in extreme amounts of overtime during the three months a year he was allowed to work on AAs.

I get that. I troubleshoot fighter jets for a living. Sometimes we have jets that are super broke for flight controls that can take a week to fix. Sometimes we have jets that have annoying static in their radios that can be fixed in 30 minutes. And we're always fighting the limited staffing issues. But I'll say this, if I'm caught working that low hanging fruit radio job while we have 2 broke jets for flight controls, I'm gonna have my rear end handed to me. This is because of a concept known as #Priorities

Thanks for the update
For me, I can't wait for the heroic char update ...all tho I am loving Mischief still and I have no intention of going live atm, but in the future this will ROCK!.

From a public policy perspective, in wartime or times of emergent threats, wouldn't it be better to have more warplanes in the air (airworthy)? In other words, it would be better to tackle the minor fixes first to ensure the fewer planes are out of immediate deployment times.

I get that air groups queue up during peacetime.

Military aircraft have mission capability statuses that are designated code 1 for Fully Mission Capable, code 2 for Partially Mission Capable, and code 3 for Not Nission Capable. Code 1 means there's no problems on the aircraft whatsoever. Code 2 means it can still fly and execute the mission with some level of degradation or hinderance. Code 3 means that it's in a non-flyable status and will not be airworthy until the problem is fixed.

This would be a code 3 issue

This would be a code 2 issue

The code 3 issues always need to be prioritized first, even if they take longer.

Thanks for the insight. Based on the demanding performance and safety standards of the US Air Force and US Navy/Marines, I would have thought even a problematic radio would jeopardize flight status. I would expect a sort of reverse triage during wartime (DEFCON 1-3).

It can, depending on the severity of the issue. If it's just some obnoxious static but doesn't entirely impede communication, then we get to it when there's time.

So you enjoy seeing classes in the same category i.e dps waaaay out dps other classes so the game becomes saturated with them.

Basically you want mage and necro armies for guilds then right? No other classes are allowed to be included?

I have been playing since beta. Recently been thinking a lot about possibly setting up custom apparel for the EQ community. If enough interest is generated, I just might kick it off.