Wow, some of that stuff sounds great! /end optimist
/begin pessimist
Yea right, when will those changes take place?
Higher grouping xp bonus: Would be great and would definitly enhance the
game. I like the fact that grouping is so strongly encouraged in EQ. The
only way to get people to work together is often to make them unable to
accomplish much on their own.
Revamping under used dungeons: Again, would be great for the game. Places
like Najeena are a waste (on the whole, my regular group spent 3 weeks there
getting equipment). I have never understood why they spend so many
resources making new zones, when they could spend much less effort fixing
older ones. The quickest fix to overcrowding would be to make zones like
Najena, Dagnor's Cauldron, Kedge Keep and Kithkor more appealing. Thought
they face a greater challenge than improving the loot and xp. They are
already many very viable zones in the game which are completly ignored. S
Ro (the orc/derv camps I am talking about, most people there are looking for
J Boots), Warslik's Woods (I think this may be the best 15-25 outdoors in
the game, but no one uses it), Swamp of No Hope (I dont knwo about the loot,
but that froglok city could be non stop pulling for a few low/mid level
groups), Firona Vie (for good characters only) come to mind right away. I
have had great grouping experiences in all these zones, but it is impossible
to find a group there.
Part of the problem is transportation. In EQ, moving around is slow, so
people tend to congregate in certain areas. A major change to game
transportation system would be needed to help this. SOmething along the
lines of stable where you "rent" a horse to take you to the zone and back
again for a nominal (it would have to be cheap). Combine this with an
Adventurer's Guild meeting hall/bulletin board. Where you could talk
about/post about forming a group to head to XXXXX some monster bashing. Now
all of a sudden you have a quick/easy/low risk way to get a group going in a
less used zone. Example:
You log on for your 2-3 hours after work, with your 21 bard. Zone into the
adventurers hall in firona vie. Wander over to the forming groups section of
the hall, and listen in. Nothing strikes your interest, but you remember
how great of a time you had kill renegade iksars in Warslik's Woods last
week, so you post a message on the board. "Starting a group for lvls 18-24.
Destination: Renegade Iksar Lake in Warslik's Woods". You then start asking
around in group forming area. Pretty soon you;ve added a 19 sk and a 20
mage to your party. Thats enough to start hitting the iksars. Granted you
will have to be careful with no healer, but your song, and the pet should be
able to keep things moving. You all head to the stables area, and pay 10g
for a round trip horse rental. Right click on your horse (make sure you
have a inv spot open!!), wait for the interuptable 10 second cast time (to
prevent abusing these poor beasts in battle). Zoning please wait...
Ahh the horse destination of WSW. A quick run to the lake, people mem their
spells/songs, and you are fighting away. 15 minutes later, a druid has seen
your post on the board and sends you a tell, "Got room for a 22 druid?".
"Great! We need a healer, come on over" 5 minutes later, he arrives in
your camp and joins in. 20 minutes later. Sk says, "Uh oh wife has come
home, I have to camp". He hits his horse, waits for the cast, then is back
in the Adventurer's Guild, camping for the night. (The horse is expired
then, you would also have to make them lore and no drop I would think).
Your group decides that your reall need a better tank, so you all /ran 100
and the loser hits his horse and tries recruiting one at the meeting hall.
It doesnt seem that outlandish to me. Just requires to admit that
sacraficing the "thrill" of running through 6 zones only to not find a group
is outweighed by the fun of being able to form groups in lesser used
locations.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cook Miller-ETOP03" <etop03@...>
To: <eqbards@egroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 1:06 PM
Subject: [eqbards] Patch in general(was Changes to Root/Snare)
> This is the whole patch and some general discussion from Alan and Brad. I
> like the idea of more xp bonus for grouping and certain underused
dungeons.
> I agree we will see how exactly "Working as intended" is defined this
time.
>
> Snip from Alan:
> We've got a lot of changes planned for the next patch. Changes for
hybrids,
> a change to the way that movement spells work (specifically Root), and a
bug
> fix for Lure spells (among many other things). First and foremost I want
to
> explain the fix to Lures. Right now (before the patch), creatures that
> should not get a save versus Lure spells are getting saves based on their
> levels. This has been broken for a while. We fixed it on test before
> Christmas, but this is the first patch since then, and the fix should go
> live with the patch. Basically, Lures will become less resisted after the
> patch.
>
> The changes to hybrid disciplines and powers are as follows. Hopefully
these
> will be the last.
>
> 1) Resistant Discipline will last five minutes instead of one minute.
>
> 2) Holyforge Discipline will lasts five minutes instead of two minutes.
>
> 3) Sanctification Discipline will last fifteen seconds instead of ten
> seconds
>
> 4) Lay on Hands will have increased healing for each level after forty of
> the paladin. After forty it will do approximately twenty points per level
> more (for levels 41-60).
>
> 5) Normal Harm Touches will save as all or nothing. There will be no
partial
> resists.
>
> 6) Harm Touch will increase ten points per level for levels one through
> forty. From levels forty-one to sixty it will increase thirty points per
> level instead of twenty
>
> 7) The Harm Touch discipline will increase Harm Touch damage by fifty
> percent instead of twenty-five percent
>
> 8) Weaponshield discipline will last twenty seconds instead of fifteen
>
> 9) Leechcurse discipline will last twenty seconds instead of fifteen
>
> 10) Deftdance will have its duration increased from ten to fifteen seconds
> 11) Puretone will have duration increased from two to four minutes
>
> 12) Hybrids will no longer reset weapon timers after casting a spell
> (further explanation below)
>
> 13) Trueshot discipline damage calculations will be changed (further
> explanation below)
> We will also be giving Hybrids a new spell at level fifty.
>
> Now for the further explanation:
>
> Trueshot damage was messed up. Basically it was giving low damage bows too
> much damage and high damage bows too little damage. We are making the
damage
> more in line with the base damage of the bow. This will reduce the damage
of
> the discipline for some and increase it for others, depending on the type
of
> bow you were using.
>
> As for the timer/casting thing... As it is now, casting a spell while
using
> a
> weapon will cause your weapon swings to be delayed by the casting time of
> the spell. So, making up numbers here, lets assume you would swing your
> weapon every ten seconds. If you were to cast a five second casting time
> spell directly after a weapon swing, then your next swing would occur
> fifteen seconds after the last one (adding the five seconds for the
spell).
> For hybrids, this will no longer happen. So if your weapon takes ten
seconds
> to swing, spell casting will no longer increase that swing time.
>
> Movement Rate Changes:
>
> We have made some changes to the way movement enhancement/reduction works.
> Essentially, Root and Snare are now completely different spells. This
means
> that Root will suppress snare, but it will not overwrite it. That's the
> primary change. But there is also a side effect to this change.
>
> Bard songs will no longer break root. Root will also suppress songs that
> enhance movement.
>
> We are aware that this will be seen as a 'nerf'. However, I'm pretty sure
> that most of you understood that bard songs were never intended to break
> root, and this is, in fact, essentially a bug fix.
>
> Alan
>
> end snip
> and snip from Brad:
>
> Hi all,
> Well, we've been giving all of this (the downtime issue) a lot of thought
> (as have you all). I've been thinking about the issues in two separate
> contexts: 1. What could be done with EQ to make it better in this area?
and
> 2. What could be done in the future to make MMOGs but probably not to EQ.
>
> So, focusing on #1 for the time being, here are a few things we might try
> short term:
>
> 1. The post that probably disturbed me most (actually, I didn't respond to
> it because I wanted to give it more thought) was the one that claimed many
> classes could advance more efficiently soloing than in a group, but that
> soloing inherently involves more boring downtime, so therefore we
encourage
> boring downtime for those who want to play efficiently with that subset of
> classes.
>
> Now, EQ has always been a game focused on grouping, with a subset of
classes
> that could solo if the player chose, but soloing was supposed to be slower
> and probably less exciting. No, we don't 'hate' the solo player or some
> such, but we think it might be impossible to make a great grouping and
great
> soloing game (oh no, I probably just started a new gigantic thread with
that
> one -- if so, please start it somewhere else so we don't get too confused,
> thanks). So, we designed most of the game in terms of balance and content
> around grouping. But, if we've erred and some classes can solo and gain
> experience more quickly than were they to group and these players feel
> therefore compelled to solo when they might be happier grouping, then
we've
> goofed up.
>
> To this end, we are seriously considering significantly increasing the
> grouping experience bonus, where the more people in your group, the bigger
> the exp. bonus you get.
>
> 2. Risk vs. reward, especially in dungeons. One of the very easy ways we
> could 'revamp' underused zones would be to increase the experience you get
> across the board in that zone (in case some of you didn't know, there's
> simply an experience modifier field in each zone header). What does this
> have to do with downtime? Well, it indirectly helps out, because one would
> advance more quickly in these dungeons, and one could also recover
> experience loss due to death more quickly in these zones. For example,
would
> low to mid level players head to Najena were that zone to give out
> significantly more exp.? (Yes, that's a question to all of you)
>
> 3. Lastly, we may consider more teleport spots, perhaps with soul bound
> keys. Maybe. My inclination is no, but we're going to seriously debate it
> today.
>
> Oh, and on a semi-related note, many of you have concerns over our
> announcement of our plans to revamp old world zones using techniques
similar
> to Kunark and Velious. Though Absor alluded to this, I wanted to be very
> clear: this does not mean necessarily increasing the difficulty. Our
attempt
> in general will be to keep the style and difficulty levels of the old
world
> zones pretty much the same. We realize that old world zones, Kunark zones,
> and Velious zones are different also in difficulty and types of groups
> required to adventure in them. I think this is a good thing -- players
with
> different play styles, time available, etc. can focus on different areas
of
> the world.
>
> What we want to do with many of the old world zones is as follows:
>
> Adjust the experience gained (as mentioned above).
> Randomize existing loot (to hopefully help camping issues)
> Completely re-do pathing from scratch on some of the bad ones (Mistmoore
> comes to mind). We know more about pathing now, and MAYBE we can make some
> of these tricky dungeons better -- but no promises (we can't change the
> geometry, after all).
> Add some cool quests.
> Anyway, these are our thoughts going forward, but nothing is set in stone
> yet, so we'd love your feedback as well.
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Brad
>
> End 2nd snip
>
> Interesting huh? I got these through an email from a friend so I am not
> sure where they came from. Hope this sparks some discussion.
>
> Piemur Draggonsinger
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Windleaf Mistsong [mailto:windleaf@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 12:19 PM
> To: eqbards@egroups.com; 'eqbards@egroups.com'
> Subject: Re: [eqbards] Changes to Root/Snare
>
>
> At 07:31 AM 1/9/01 -0600, Mott, Mike J. wrote:
> >Alan posted:
> >--------------------------------------
> >We have made some changes to the way movement enhancement/reduction
works.
> >Essentially, Root and Snare are now completely different spells. This
means
> >that Root will suppress snare, but it will not overwrite it. That's the
> >primary change. But there is also a side effect to this change.
> >Bard songs will no longer break root. Root will also suppress songs that
> >enhance movement.
> >We are aware that this will be seen as a 'nerf'. However, I'm pretty sure
> >that most of you understood that bard songs were never intended to break
> >root, and this is, in fact, essentially a bug fix.
> >-----------------------------------------
> >
> >It is pretty bad when I read something like this and think "Great, now
our
> >chaining songs are going to be messed up because they forgot to test it
on
> >bards".
> >
> >One thing this does demonstrate is that "movement" type spell effects can
> be
> >segregated...so why can they move bard song into a class of its own?
> >
> >Also, I really dont consider this a nerf since Verant has been saying for
2
> >years that bard songs should NOT break root.
> >
> >Lago
>
> I would agree that it would be nice if Selo's Consonant Chain wouldn't
> overwrite Snare as well. While it has a "snare" component, it does have a
> much shorter duration. I would think the complication is that if Snare
took
> precedence over Consonant Chain, then I would think that Snare would also
> suppress the ATK SPD debuff of Chain as well.
>
> I do agree that I doubt they've thoroughly tested it. It will be a
pleasant
> surprise to see this working "as intended". We'll have to double check the
> health levels that mobs stop fleeing at as well with Chains.
>
> ---Windleaf
>
>
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