Explain why Mage Pets can't be nerfed?

It was said Monk fists could not be toned down because the solution you attempted -- to check which expansion a server is on every time an unarmed attack is made -- was way too processor intensive. Fair enough, asked & answered.

Why can't this logic be put in place for the Mage's pet spells? Obviously the number of pets being summoned per minute is a mere fraction of the number of Monk autoattacks.

Why not add a statistically toned down set of Mage pets to the database so when a pet spell is cast, the server's progress can be checked and an more era-appropriate version appears? You could lower STR, STA, and AC, and either lower H2H skill or perhaps start the pets off with an invisible weak H2H weapon equipped.

This leaves Monks unfixed, but I'd find an overpowered class that has to risk melee much less offensive than a class that can provide a risk-free high DPS tank AND can provide personal DPS only slightly under a Wizard.

They stated in an earlier post that mage pets were tied into the live servers and could not be altered just for Ragefire. I would search the forums and you will find the original post.

because the baby jesus will not allow it.

Of course mage pets *could* be modified for progression servers.
Better to have a terribly broken balance, I guess.

Best explanation:

"Because development and formulas with numbers or wibby wobbey timey whimy stuff then live servers as opposed to progression via 1999."

I challenge JChan to fix this one, everyone said a server queue couldn't be done but she went and pulled an all-niter and next thing you know boom Ragefire Queue!

and there was much rejoicing or many tears shed depends if you got in or not I guess.

Now it's time for round two, a progression server nerf for all pet classes as they are all buffed way beyond classic. Maybe check if expansion < the expansion they were buffed just change the damage formula? I don't know what they can do, honestly doesn't bother me that much but it sure does trivialize content when you throw a couple mages or necros or even enchanters into the mix. Pet's hit way too hard honestly could multiply progression server pet damage by 0.66 and they would still likely be too powerful.

I think people take less issue with the fact that mage pets can take hits better than Big ole Bubba the fat Ogre warrior but more so that they hit every bit as hard as a monk which are also vastly overpowered though pale in comparison to mage pets.

In fact we should organize some duels between monks and equivalent level mage pets just to watch them in action just for some giggles.

You guys. Even if mages were nerfed it wouldn't make the content any harder. It would just take longer to kill. It's not like we are talking about tanks not being able to die. We are talking about a class doing too much dps. It's just not a big deal.

Woah! You must have missed the 15+ page thread about melee DPS trying to nerf caster DPS in the vet forum a few weeks ago.

They(person asking for nerf XYZ) don't care that it will make things worse for everyone, they just want to feel like they're 'even'. People don't understand the far reaching consequence of their actions.

(I agree it's not a big deal as changing it won't solve any of the actual issues)

Pets and focus were changed around the same time, so it would be hard to 'revert' one without reverting the other, which would be two major systems, that are intertwined with the normal servers.

Also this is a Time Locked Progression server, it's not trying to be like how it was in 1999. There are a lot of significant changes in the game (including spells) that are just accepted to be how they are and were made perfectly clear before the server even released.

People are supposed to accept how the server is, not demand and request changes for it to be a more classic server. There was a reason the pet limitations were announced to people before the server even released, so it wouldn't come down to these demands.

Of course it can be done, they can fix fist damage also.

The question is, is it a good use of Everquest's annual budget to do so. Obviously not.

The following is the only potential solution i was able to come up with. No idea if it would work at all.

I know AAs can be added and flagged by expansions, and was thinking about the possibility of a passive AA that has 2 ranks. Rank 1 is available at classic. Rank 1 would work as a negative pet focus. Rank 2 would become available at luclin launch, and would return pets to their current status.

since pet foci work on a template, every mage pet from 2 to 60 would need to have extra templates added for the first 18 months of the server, possibly even more if classic foci functionality is wanted. It would take a not insignificant amount of work, but its honestly the best solution i could come up with, if it even works

Alternatively, they could do what im saying, but in reverse. since all of the other servers have luclin available for everyone, add a luclin era AA, level 1, 0 points, that works as a permanent pet foci that scales the pets up to where they are now, and make the default version of the spells a scaled down version. that way, on standard servers they could make use of the regular pets, but on RF and LJ, theyd be tuned down.

Why not just create a new set of spells. Lvl4 water pet Prog server version. Add the db code to all servers but only have the scroll avalible on the Prog server.

I think the idea from Chanaluss has a lot of merit. How about a permanent aura that causes the negative foci that goes away with Luclin.

i dont think that is a solution. im fairly certain they cant make tradeskill recipes grab a different item by server, and many pets are research only. in addition, it would require creating a series of templates for every pet focus that works on every pet in the level ranges that are affected.

Another "WAAAAAAHHHH I demand an explanation even though there is already one posted!" post.

Its a damned if you do damned if you dont problem. One one hand you have creative solutions that require effort and cost. On the other hand you have trivialized content and risking subs... And none of us have access to the code to see what really is possible and what is just exceeding the effort threshold DBG is willing to put in. Who the heck really knows.

not disagreeing, but im sure theres a simpler solution than wiping the spellbooks of the ragefire mages, disabling tradeskill recipes, introducing a new line of scrolls, and adding a half dozen new templates per pet level.

That's a terrible answer. No monk goes unarmed on live servers. The ONLY server a monk is going unarmed on is the progression server. Can't they check if you're unarmed and adjust the dmg accordingly?

You'd think.

Honestly, I think you have to be more stupid than a lemming to believe their excuse. But then again: "We don't think class balance is *that* important on a progression server and even if we did we networked our servers and game builds so stupidly that we can't do something to one server without it impacting the others unless we do a ton of work to fix that"... is not sound-bite friendly.

If you work in game dev, their "excuse" makes total sense.

On paper, we can come up with all kinds of solutions, but the reality is, applying any of them creates huge risks. Coding on a piece of tech thats over 16 years old, is extremely elegant. When you do any work arounds, hacks, or refactors to a code base like this the risks of screwing something up tangentially related to the things you are mucking with are HUGE and real.

We know they have limited resources, so the time it takes for them to code or hack it might not even be that long, but to debug it and QA it, and certify it is considerably longer than they can afford. Hell, we already saw what happened when they tried to layer on a simple piece of tech like instancing... When the server launched, their was some bug that got missed that created level 50 characters on roll relating to that system that tried to shoe string in.

Their combat system, is probably a nightmare to make sense of. You're talking about adding on features to boot, not just slightly reworking something that already exists or importing a working feature from another branch.

It doesn't help that the community has proved it isn't very tolerant of nasty bugs as it is...