EverQuest II Community Summit -- Voice Your Concerns Here

Only lvl29 necro but i noticed a couple of things last night.

Essence's of Anguish. When I put grisly mark on a mob the essence sometimes gets summoned to a group members inventory. Also the necromatic rune line of spells, not sure if this is even working because it does not show up in the maintained spell bar. The previous version Summoners mark does.

Increasing intelligence increases the damage done to our pet in the Bloody Ritual line of spells with no increase in the power gained.

All I want is customer care, so that when im doing a CS ticket, I will get a response that suits the question.
I dont want be handed one more standard reply when I make a petition, we deserve better service than what we are given atm.

Xalmat, i think its important to adress the "no dmg=no xp" issues.

The VERY least they can do is add DB pet dmg to me.

Believe me, it will be addressed.

Thanks alot Xalmat. I only hope they will be listening and not place in some strategic coughs and toilet breaks.

;-)

Here's what's currently on my list to bring to the Community Summit. There's still time to have things added/removed, so if you want something added, reply post haste.



Summit Notes

Critical Issues

The change requiring 1-damage to get experience NEEDS TO BE REMOVED. This has done absolutely nothing to halt AFK-macro soloing, and yet has had a very negative impact on the legitimate players.

Cloth Armor, especially crafted Cloth Armor, has a HUGE lack of Intelligence.

Necromancer's Dartain's Cloaking Debris reportedly no longer works

Conjuror group illusions (Group Illusion Air and Earth) no longer work.

When is the massive memory leak in EverQuest II going to be fixed? EQ2 becomes largely unplayable on systems with 512 megabytes of memory after simply zoning once or twice, or after playing for a scant one or two hours.

Related to the above, why are Qeynos zones so much worse for system slowdown than Freeport zones?

When is the grape ape graphic for Tellurian Veteran being changed to something else? Suggestions include a dark brown Earth Golem (such as from Illusion Earth Elemental) or the onyx Earth Golem (such as from the Guardian Rook illusion).

The Essence Shift line of spells STILL drain more hit points from the pet as player INT rises.

In many zones, especially some of the Desert of Flames zones, pet pathing is horrid.

Shard of Essence/Dark Heart type summons NEED to show how much HP/power they consume in both the spell descriptions and in the item examination windows. The spell descriptions also need to indicate how many charges the summoned item has.

Conjuror/Necromancer specific issues

Pets need some form of melee mitigation. In a group with a priest, lack of mitigation causes the pet to take too much damage, making it impractical for a priest to try to heal pets.

There's concern about Summoner Heroic Opportunities. Other Mage classes get several spells to trigger their Heroic Opportunities with, but Summoners are limited to a very small number of spells for heroic opportunities.

Summoner pet heals are *VERY* inadequate now. They heal a scant amount of hit points on the pet, making them, more than anything, speedbump spells whose power cost might be better spent on a nuke.

Scout and Mage class Pets have much too low hit points, making it far too easy for them to die to area damage attacks.

The Brand line of buffs needs a serious do-over. Conjurors lack any kind of offense boost via the Brand buffs (instead receiving a minimal defense boost), while Necromancers, Wizards, and Warlocks all receive offense-oriented buffs.

Vehement Stone is largely considered useless, especially when compared to the Necromancer equivalent.

There's concern that the pet HP to power conversion spells are lowered too much in potency. Is this intended?

Why was Tellurian Veteran's name changed to Tellurian Avenger? It makes absolutely no sense to change the name, and has only caused confusion in the community.

There's concern that the HP drain on Necromancer Lich is too high compared to the associated Power regeneration.

Necromancer stuns do not deal damage, yet Conjuror, Wizard, and Warlock stuns do.

The new snare spells granted to Necromancers as part of the combat changes are largely seen as useless. Perhaps these spells should be reconsidered.

Conjuror Offering/Sacrifice require power to cast. Considering Offering also outright kills the pet, it makes no sense for Offering/Sacrifice to require power to cast.

Summoner stuns need their cast time lowered to 2 seconds instead of 3 seconds.

Necromancers seem to have very little sort of group utility compared to Conjurors, short of standard concentration buffs, damage, and resurrection.

There's concern that Summoner Mage pets use their power pools too quickly.

Swarm and Dumbfire pets die far too easily to riposte damage.

Any plans for allowing Pet damage to be filtered differently than "Other's Damage"?

Pets have abysmal spell mitigation. Perhaps they should "follow" player resists, much like EverQuest 1 pets do.

Are there any plans to finally add Summon Companion?

What was the reason for changing the Fire Seed line from a DD/Interrupt to a DoT?

Game Balance Issues/Questions

Cloth Armor should be restricted to Mage classes only. Likewise, Leather should be restricted only to Brawlers and Druids, Chain to Scouts and Shaman, and Plate to Fighters, Crusaders, and Clerics only. As such, their stats should be adjusted to reflect the desired statistics for each class.

There's concern about tank pets and their AoE taunt abilities. Are they working as intended?

It would help a great deal if swarm pets showed their master's names again.

Shrink spells, especially for pets, is in large need. Pets are simply too large to try to navigate around in groups and raids, especially in very tight quarters.

How are tank pets meant to stack up compared to player tanks?

Are there ever plans to allow Mages to equip throwing pouches?

Tradeskillers are in *dire* need of assistance at this point in the game. Tradeskill items are, with the exception of rare items, vastly inferior to mob drop and quest items (which are also a LOT more common and easier to acquire). Case of point: Apprentice 4 spells versus Adept 1 spells. With the exception of the low end of the leveling curve, Apprentice 4 scrolls are completely driven off of the market due to the overwhelming presence of Adept 1 scrolls.

Stat scaling on tradeskill items is also BADLY in need of a revamp. Right now, the stats on a Rare Formed tier 5 cloth armor are worse than even a common pristine tier 5 cloth item. The stat scaling tree should look like this (Vertical axis represents tier, horizontal access represents quality)

Common Rare Fabled

Crude T1
Shaped T1
Formed T1
Pristine T1
Crude T2 Crude Rare T1
Shaped T2 Shaped Rare T1
Formed T2 Formed Rare T1
Pristine T2 Pristine Rare T2
Crude T3 Crude Rare T2 Crude Fabled T1
Shaped T3 Shaped Rare T2 Shaped Fabled T1
Formed T3 Formed Rare T2 Formed Fabled T1
Pristine T3 Pristine Rare T2 Pristine Fabled T1
Crude T4 Crude Rare T3 Crude Fabled T2
Shaped T4 Shaped Rare T3 Shaped Fabled T2
Formed T4 Formed Rare T4 Formed Fabled T2
Pristine T4 Pristine Rare T4 Pristine Fabled T2
Crude T5 Crude Rare T4 Crude Fabled T3
Shaped T5 Shaped Rare T4 Shaped Fabled T3
Formed T5 Formed Rare T4 Formed Fabled T3
Pristine T5 Pristine Rare T4 Pristine Fabled T4

And so on. The idea is that the higher the tier, the better the quality. And for each rarity you go up a tier from Common (IE Rare should be equal to Common +1, Fabled should be Common+2, such that a tier 4 rare should have tier 5 stats, and so on.) Crude from one tier should NEVER be worse stats than the pristine from the previous tier (ie a Crude tier 5 should still be better in every way than a pristine tier 4)

Plans for the Future

Are there plans for Levitation?

Are there plans for adding more Heroic Opportunities?

Are Proc percentages accurate? (Especially for spells like Fire Seed)

Are there plans to give Summoners more varieties of item summons? Suggestions include summoned arrows, summoned throwing knives, summoned throwing stars, summoned food and drink, summoned weapons and armor (perhaps equivalent to vendor-grade so as to not infringe on other items), and the like.

Are there plans to add more Entertainment spells, such as group Fire Elemental, group Water Elemental, and group Zombie illusions? Other suggestions include a Monster illusion for conjuror pets and perhaps a Spectre illusion for Necromancers.

Are there plans to add *vastly* different varieties of armor for players to wear? Everything from ragged beggar clothes to formal dresses/gowns could be used for cloth armor alone, for example.

Are there plans to add any sort of Liquor or Alcoholic Beverages to the game? Currently the Alcohol Tolerance skill is completely useless.

Are there plans to revamp the sky in many zones, especially Qeynos? Skies are not dynamic; no moving clouds; little stellar movement or variety; a bright blur for the sun; clouds do not even come out in Qeynos when it rains

Any plans on adding seasons to EverQuest II zones?

Are there plans for more expansions? Will there be level cap increases with each expansion? Since EQ2 supports a level cap of 200, are there eventual plans to reach that level cap? Will there be Alternate Advancement options? Will there be Specialization options? (Ie: one Conjuror could specialize in pets, while another could specialize in buffs, another in spell damage, and another in debuffs)

Are there plans on adding more pet variety as far as graphics go? (Necromancer Zombie pets are in *DIRE* need of more variety.) Is it intended for Tellurian Myrmidon to only have one graphic for all three ranks? (Apprentice, Adept, Master)

A growing complaint is that the community of EverQuest II is getting largely anti-social. This is perhaps due to the lack of need to group or socialize. Is the dev team aware of this trend, and are there any plans to "address" this?

What ever happened to mob-drop quests? They seemed to largely disappear after the Feerrott, and are practically non-existent in the Desert of Flames expansion.

Hi Xalmat

apologies if this has been addressed, been on holiday for two weeks and couldnt be bothered to read the other posts

Could we get the Lich illusion looked at asap. This is a serious art issue that has been with us from the start and has had many posts made about it.

Thanks

Sure, added to my list. Could you be more specific as to what's broken about it though?

And didn't I read somewhere the devs were looking into it?
Message Edited by Xalmat on 09-26-2005 11:00 AM

I think the devs said they're actually taking away the clothing on the spell. The problem with this one (and misty image) is that it superimposes hair onto you and in the case of lich, the hair rubberbands all over the place when you move. The clothing part may be what causes the hair problem though. Pretty sure this one is already in the queue though.

Also, the pet not being able to attack anything either blocking its LoS or just in the way between it and the mob has caused many, many frustrating evenings for me. I understand why they changed being able to deploy the pet on any mob that you can target but simple rubble completely blocks a large portion of our damage from landing and it takes alot of motion to get the pet to actually move to a point that he has a clear line of sight.
This change is quite infuriating. There are quite a few places (clefts war room being a great example) where you'll go nuts trying to get your pet a line of sight.

I haven't seen any problems with my Lich. When I have it on I turn into a skeleton with green flames surrounding me, sort of like the old level 30 training mage pet. Also it shows my equipped robe which is also really cool. I know some other people are complaining about Lich, but I would like to leave mine the way it is. Maybe it's because I am an Erudite necro. But if it's broke please fix it for everyone else.

Also please say something about about getting a better power conversion on our summoned hearts. Even at adept 3 my sacrificial heart is only giving 38 points of mana every 4 seconds. I have over 3000 points of total power. So it's not even giving me 1/4 of a bar of mana. This used to be a good group utility to hand out to tanks and priests, but now it's completely worthless and needs to be fixed.

Might want to add the swarm pets (rats/fish) if one of them dies they all die from what i have seen. Might double check in a dual or so throw a low lvl fish/rat at a high lvl and have them kill one off.

How could I forget that? /bonks self.

On a related note, here's the itinerary for the summit:

Arrive Thursday September 29. Do nothing.
Go to the San Diego Zoo on Friday, September 30.

Saturday, October 1, 2005 (the bread and butter of the summit)

8:00 - 9:30 am Breakfast at the Doubletree Mission Valley
9:30 - 10:00 am Travel to SOE
10:00 - 10:30 am Introduction
10:30 - 11:00 am Tour
11:00 - 12:00 pm 1st Roundtable - EQII
12:00 - 12:30 pm Customer Feedback - EQII
12:30 - 2pm BBQ Lunch outside at SOE
2:00 - 3:30 pm 2nd Panel Roundtable - EQII
3:30 - 4:00 pm Afternoon Break
4:00 - 5:00 pm Final Roundtable - EQII
5:00 pm Shuttle service back to the Doubletree Mission Valley
7:00 pm Representatives meet in the lobby for dinner
7:15 pm Shuttle service to dinner
7:30 pm Dinner at Gordon Biersch Mission Valley

Roundtable Discussions

Expansions and the High Level Game
We'll be discussing what you'd like to see in future expansions and the
high level game (raids, alternate advancement, etc.) in the first
roundtable discussion.

The Combat Changes
The combat changes are a hot topic, so we'd like to get feedback from
the community on the changes we've made.

The Newbie Experience and Open Discussion
We'll be talking about how to improve the new player experience in EQII,
as well as more general topics such as upcoming improvements to other
systems. At the end of this roundtable, we'll take questions on any
topic.

With the good list of concerns and issues you have compiled that are very specific in detail try to get specific answers. I have a really bad feeling "We are or will be looking into that issue" will be used a lot to answer the questions and concerns we have. Don't let them give that answer. Demand answers and timeframes. With the itenerary involving future expansions which can be good, tell them to concentrate on the problems and concerns of the game as it is right now and what they haven't fixed since the game went live.

Could you bring up the population problem? Ask them if and when they are going to merge any servers! Thanks in advance!

If EQ1 AA's are what they want to give, the community is better off without them in my opinion.My major concern is that they never become the system they did in EQ1 where they were used to correct horrid imbalance issues while creating new ones all their own. I also want to avoid the huge grind they became that greatly seperated members of the community that were the same level; in EQ1 as a 65 necro with over 500AA, a 70 necro without the same simply couldn't compete and most of the time the difference was in playtime- a player should be able to compete with any other equal level/class player. AA's are a delicate thing and I'd rather they be completely avoided in exchange for quested spells/abilities in ways similar to HQ's but as I said, they are delicate. EQ1 used them as cop outs and dodged alot of core issues like pet control and healing/DPS balance by adding AA's and in an effort to keep AA's useful they started adding things that either should have come with level/been innate or been introduced as spell lines.Once they are in EQ2 if it's not done right they will be a nightmare of balance and content and as much I have faith in this teams abilites, it'll be just short of miraculous to dodge all the issues they bring up.

What you have about Specialization is nice and that's exactly what I'd have liked the training system to be-spell line/ability improvements instead of straight spells that are temporary boosts at best.

As a 50(and climbing) Woodoworker I do have concerns when it comes to arrows and totems. We have no use for our rare scraps, we cant sell byproducts( unlike other crafters) and our arrows just take too long to make en masse and support the community- especially since we get undercut by the npc merchant and there really isnt that much difference in the arrows.I'd love to be ale to imbue arrows with spells the same way we do wands-Explosive tipped arrows! Freeze arrows that can stun! I could go on heh.

Spirit Totems should work like food in that food has no minimum level per tier but the max benefit is capped per tier.Heck, ask if there's going to be a tradeskill revamp. There are alot of remnants of what was(massive interdependency) and the system could use an overhaul to streamline it/make it more fun. There have been numerous suggestions of allowing customizilbe gear stats and look that would make crafting mch more involved. I'd love to get a t6 rare armor that looks like beggars rags just because, or be allowed to custom crank all the availible stat points on a wand into the stat of my choice.

Your list is pretty near perfect for me though and I hope you have fun.

I agree the whole line of spells is completely useless. It now does crazily low mana conversion AND it's on the same timer as manastone. What's the point of using that?

On the lich illusion, the clothes are being taken away, and the beard/weirdness seems to affect only certain racial/facial combos...but it's terrible nonetheless. I really wish they'd change it to a spectre illusion at adept 3/master lvl =P

I 100% agree with this. AAs should NEVER be added IMO. "/pet hold" was a disgrace that it needed to be an AA, along with MANY other abilities all across the classes. While perhaps a few things qualified as "character improvements", WAY too often they were used to correct imbalances and say "well this is available, so therefore with it you are OK."

Yes AAs extend the life of a game, but only artificially by saying "now grinding after you reach top-level is for something!" It's a way to extend the life of a game w/o adding actual content. I hope they never make it into this game, though something tells me they will eventually.

Alternate Advancement, if done right, would be a great boost to the game without breaking it. Unfortunately, you're right, the way the EQ1 developer mentality is to balance via AAs without actually addressing the core player.