Itemization Complaint

Discussion in 'Items and Equipment' started by Koko, Jan 23, 2015.

  1. Koko Well-Known Member

    Forward
    This post is heavily biased. I model highly complex systems for a living, I play EQII as a hobby. I treat EQII as a highly complex mathematical system and I find fun in solving it. Once it stops being a highly complex system, or becomes a system where most parameters do not matter, it stops being fun for me.

    Post
    EQII has many methods of customization (alternate advancements, adornments, reforging, gear, and casting order), likely more than any other online game. Some players use this customization aspect competitively, does this "build" work better for this encounter, script, zone, etc. Many players take pride in their ability to discern customizations that work well, or finding the "best" customizations. I am one of those players.

    Most of these customizations no longer matter.

    With single items producing orders of magnitude of powerful stats/effects (e.g. CB, P, WDB, very large damage procs etc.) the choices players make in AAs, adornments, reforging, and even casting order are simply insignificant. Currently, the "power" of a character degrades to a few key pieces of jewelery. Last expansion, two such items were Ring of Uplifting Swings and Dreadscale Band, and characters with these items were "on a different level" than those without. With the introduction of Fabled Deathtoll, jewelry power levels increased exponentially, enough to drive me away from the game (at the time I thought it was permanently).

    In addition to significantly, if not completely, replacing player skill with a simple gear check, these items are frustratingly annoying to have in loot tables. Did Uplifting Swings//Practiced Strike//Practiced Tactics drop? If not, I still suck compared to X or my guild still sucks compared to guild Y, both of which are simply more lucky with loot tables. Each of these items can easily increase a character's power level by 5~20%, and there are up to 9 jewelery slots. This isn't a necessarily a "fun" feature.

    tl;dr:
    Jewelery should place emphasis on player choice rather than be a RNG gear check.
    I'd be very happy if AoM had jewelery had no procs at all.
    Jrel and Nezette like this.
  2. Katanallama Well-Known Member

    It's an interesting contrast, armor this expansion is barely better than 2/2 mystical while there's an amp or uplifting effect for every slot it seems.

    Also interesting to nerf the practiced items and then put a bunch of the new Amp stuff in. At least the practiced items had to build up over a few minutes of combat.
  3. Errrorr An Actual EQ2 Player

    I've seen plenty of people with lots of this gear still being awful versus many without.

    While it helps, it doesn't instantly make a player far better than another.

    I'd much rather see Developer time spent on doing away with armour that can give scouts 90% of their DPS from turning on auto attack and going afk for 10 mins.
  4. Asmati New Member

    I agree with Koko.
    I suppose you could say that, however consider the 100 CB/Potency collection ring.
    (1 + 700/100) * (1 + 750/100) = 6,800% normal
    (1 + 800/100) * (1 + 850/100) = 8,550% normal

    One item increases the player's power by 25%. I know this is at the item's maximum potential, but there are 8 other item slots. 50~100% increase to AA damage from Uplifting Swings here, 10% outgoing damage from Practiced Strike there, and the difference is overwhelming. The power of these effects significantly undermines all other choices.
    This is a problem with WDB directly, rather than scouts. T1 mages have roughly the same AA multiplier as scouts these days (90% of theirs, AAs considered).
  5. Iseous Active Member

    As far as AA, a lot of it is insignificant because of the inflation of stats. However, there are definitely superior choices still, especially depending on the encounter. And maybe for some classes cast order doesn't matter, but I know at least for a lot of mages, cast order is very significant. Perhaps if you compare someone with much better gear to someone with horrible gear, the one with much better gear can compete even with an inferior cast order, AA choices, etc. However, given equal gear, the skilled and knowledgeable player can do significantly better.

    It would be very nice if they updated AA so that most of it was relevant again.
  6. Koko Well-Known Member

    Read weapon damage bonus. 50~100% base AA damage increase is not insignificant.
    Define significant. 25% increase significant? As demonstrated, one item does that. Cast order, by comparison, matters very little. What jewelery/charms you have matters a lot.
  7. Iseous Active Member

    I thought you said choices in AA are insignificant. Most of it is insignificant. However, there are lots of key abilities that you can only have so many of, which are good for different situations. For instance, on my Warlock, I have different specs for single target or AOE. There are a lot of factors that go into it, but I could probably do 25-100% more damage depending on the fight/spec. And cast order is extremely significant. I have no idea how you could possibly say it matters very little. If you just clicked random abilities you would not get anywhere close to the numbers I can put up. Maybe for scouts it doesn't matter as much since most CA's are pretty pitiful.

    But I'm not sure what you're getting at. The Amplifying ring that can give you 25% more damage is something anyone can get... You don't have to raid at all to acquire it. So if everyone can have it, then it essentially becomes irrelevant as far as power because it can apply to anyone. So if you're talking about relative strength, if you add 25% more damage to everyone, then the relative power has not changed at all. Thus the only way to be more powerful would be to have better AA choices, cast order, etc. However, getting the other loot can matter then since it requires raiding and luck for the drops. But as far as the practiced effects, for the most part, those aren't that great anymore. They used to be a lot better. But most fights don't last nearly long enough for the full effects to apply. Furthermore, it would be kinda boring if the items we got gave us like 0.2% damage increase. People like seeing progression, and it certainly makes acquiring new gear more exciting.
  8. Koko Well-Known Member

    Right, this for me is a problem. The choices should be significant. AA, adorns, and reforging (in general) are not meaningful choices because of jewelery effects. EQII would be a much more interesting game if these choices were meaningful. They don't need to be reworked, jewelery effects are simply so overbearing they "blank" their impact.
    I'm sure you are very skilled on your warlock. You may even be 10% better than the next best warlock (which would be exceptional). However, you will lose to him if he has one item up on you. You will get destroyed if he has two items. Comparatively, your skill is insignificant.
  9. Iseous Active Member

    I don't disagree with you about wanting them to be more meaningful. I would love an AA revamp that makes most of the choices actually matter. Adorns and reforging are not significant compared to some effects, true. However, at least with reforging, you're not really gaining any stats. You're just trading one stat for a different one (and actually at a loss). So the fact that you are gaining anything even though you are actually losing stats is significant (in a relative sense). And in the end, with equal gear, these choices make a difference.

    Ultimately casting order is the most significant coupled with gear. You were comparing me to the "next best warlock" which implies this is also a skilled player. This would be like comparing someone with good gear and someone with slightly worse gear. In either case, the difference would be small. Now give someone my warlock who has never played a warlock before and try claiming they'd have any idea how to parse well. Obviously the gear would be the same, and you could even give them the same AA specs. There is no way they'd get close without any idea of a good cast order.
  10. Koko Well-Known Member

    A 10% gap is not a skilled player. A 2~3% gap is skilled, 10% is a poorly written computer script.

    You're on board with my main argument. You want these choices to matter, currently they don't. They can matter if each choice section is revamped around jewelery procs, or the source of the disturbance can be removed. I'm arguing for the later, rather than the former.
  11. Xelgad Developer

    Solutions for the scout damage breakdown are being worked on. :)
    Mogrim, Bloodguts and Neiloch like this.
  12. Koko Well-Known Member

    but...but... what about 9 items having more "impact" than everything else (AAs, adorns, reforge, character inputs)?

    Why does jewelry a player has matter more than how a player plays the game? ;__;
  13. Crychtonn Active Member

    You're under estimating button pushing skill. Gear helps and the gear talked about in this thread can really help. But peoples DPS no matter what the gear can still suck if they are clueless at pushing buttons. Go to any mid tier guild and you can see that first hand. Small hand full of good players carrying a bunch of bad ones. And all the gear in the world won't make the bad ones DPS better.
  14. Neiloch Well-Known Member

    Well its an item based game, if you didn't see significant improvement from new items then who cares. I agree passive damage is out of control and is being worked on (auto attack, procs). Outside of that there isn't a lot of room for player skill to be a bigger factor while making items interesting and still have a significant impact. Its a target locking, hotbar based combat system. Out of all the ones I have played EQ2 is actually one of the more interesting ones. Otherwise its Rift, WoW, SWTOR and many others which are child's play in comparison, imo.

    Equipment determines maximum potential and player skill determines the exploitation of that potential. Passive DPS factors have brought these far too close together but as mentioned that is being worked on.
  15. Eclipsed Member

    Yes there are good and bad players. Of course. But the important thing in this post is that all things being equal between two players except for one has certain pieces of jewelry and one doesn't, the one with will absolutely destroy the one without.
    Kraeref likes this.
  16. Koko Well-Known Member

    I'll clarify my statement.

    This is a complaint targeted towards end game players/progression/itemization. This isn't comparing pug player to raider, this is comparing raider A to raider B. Remember in DOV when you had someone new and they sucked because they didn't have enough CC/Cmit? This is the same scenario, replace CC/Cmit with jewelry. It is an item based localized failure condition.

    So when I say one piece of jewelry means makes or breaks a player, I'm not discussing inexperienced players.
    For example;
    I know Neiloch and Errror both play rangers
    I know they are both respected for playing rangers
    I expect them to play at a competitive level (within 2~3% EncDPS of each other)*
    *This is "button pushing skill" at the competitive level, I can go into detail about this in a different thread

    But if Errror has a piece of jewelry that Neiloch does not, Errror would out DPS Neiloch by 10~25%! A few pieces of jewelry and Errror is worth two or more Neiloches! This is the problem I am discussing in this thread. Errror might be better than Neiloch, or vice versa, but it doesn't matter because we're going to take the one with more jewelery. Jewelry is now more important than the player. We're back to the era of crit mit/CC requirements. Meet the jewelry requirements or you don't matter.

    Nothing but jewelery matters, and that is the problem.
    Regolas, Brennin and Ajjantis like this.
  17. Rocketjones Active Member

    ^This.
  18. Vasco Active Member

    I'm sure like myself, most play this game for the instant gratification. It's the drive of obtaining gear and improving myself that keeps me playing. If you make everything bland and the upgrades you get is so small, there is no drive for me to play this game. Yes, some items are super OP compared to others, but you take away the carrot and the rabbit stops running.

    You can beat AOM raid in heroic gear and jewelry with a decent guild. You don't need the said OP jewelry to progress, but it is nice to have it to make the encounter goes by quicker. That's why in my opinion the carrot should stay as it is. It's nice to have something to shoot for, otherwise I'd stop playing already.

    Now epeen dps battle is a whole another topic. I won't go into that one.
  19. Crychtonn Active Member

    Where in my post did I compare a pug player to a raider? And to be clear a lot of the tier I and II raid mobs are dropping the gear your talking about. This isn't last xpac where you had to be doing end tier raiding to get it. I'm not disagreeing that the jewelry is extremely powerful. I only said I think your underestimating how much button pushing factors in.

    Rangers are a good example of this and always have been. Neiloch is where he's at not because of the gear he has but because he's also very good at button pushing. A good deal of rangers are terrible at it. And all the gear in the world won't fix them.
  20. Koko Well-Known Member

    You made the comparison when you said I underestimated button presssing.
    Neiloch (and any other skilled player) loses to a poorly programmed bot with better jewelry. /dropmic