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Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 8:01 am
by rogbok
Control wrote:Ah, so by "extending the gameplay", you mostly mean making characters more powerful, thereby reducing the gameplay :)
Thanks for the offer to help test, but we're not really in dev mode at the moment, so I'm not exactly eager to go changing the game's balance.

Hi thanks for the feedback, I think extending the gameplay via AA's would mean more powerful characters by definition, but as I originally posted I am more interested in useful AA's like group invis and extending buff duration to make boxing less painful.

Since you brought it up, in my opinion, and i mean no disrespect, the game isn't balanced for a server that is flagged as ''group raid'', all raid targets are too strong for a group e.g. level 50 group equipped with best in slot 50 gear can't take down that expansions raid targets, and then some raid mob are simply too strong take Diabo Xin Xin Thall, level 66 and a total monster, my tank is 2029ac and 9200hps buffed and this guy owns him, with two clerics and 8 total characters I can really only manage to get him to 40-60% before either rampage takes out dps melee or oom. While this may not seem like a big deal as i only have around 130aa's my concern is how am i going to fair fighting elemental boss's considering AC and HP caps/limits. Please understand I am not complaining I am just trying to understand your thoughts, if I can't beat a level 66 Luclin boss being level 65 when Luclin is a level 60 expansion how am I going to fair against the Elemental boss's who are level 75-80.

I decided to play on this server because it was 'group raid' and i wanted to really experience the content, i am not about rushing through content even if that mean's xp'ing for AA's but as it stands i think i won't be able to group raid elemental targets based on my experience in Vex thal based on the level of the raid targets, level 66. Maybe its lag or maybe i am just not very good at boxing but i would like to know what you think, consider two things;

1. Is it possible to take out a raid target within the level limit of the expansion, including best in slot level comparable items (e.g. nothing from next expansion)?
2. Most notably how many players overall have reached tier 3 or 4 let alone Plane of Time?

I am guessing and I eagerly await your response ( because you would have the backend data ) but I believe some of the raid mob aren't balanced so people either level to the max to take them out, when that isn't an option they AA... when that fails to get them across the line they skip the content or leave the server?

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 12:49 pm
by vallex
Gear is swell, but first thing I would do (I assume you are 65? if not get there asap) but 130 aa's is not going to cut it. I would grab at least 300 aa's or so on your guys minimum. My group was (2 players total) my buddy boxing a warrior/shaman/bard and I was playing a rogue and cleric, then later added a third box either a zerker or ranger depending on what was needed (more on this later).

We we're able to do all of luclin and well into pop with 5 characters and didn't add the sixth till we hit a wall with Rathe Council, where not only do you need more deeps you also need long duration snare (ranger). Now that I think of it snare is super useful on Corinav as well. So with warrior, shaman, bard, cleric, zerker, ranger (perfect group for this server IMHO we did everything up to Rallos Zek in PoT.

So here are some bullet points

- Melee dps is where it's at on this server they are more durable and they don't go oom.
- Warrior's are by far the best tank, defensive and better dps then the knight
- Bards are required here for over haste and resists and fading memories
- Cleric of course
- Zerker has war cry (monk's are ok as well but no war cry)
- Ranger has long duration snare and decent deeps
- Use tribute, fury of combat (double attack buff), Bulwark of honor (ac buff), the accuracy one as well
- Use 2 hander's on the warrior and the monk if you use one. With all of your flurry aa's and tribute running you will flurry a ton.
-

So I dunno, with 8 toons total you have more wiggle room for classes, you have a warrior and 2 clerics so that good, I would add a shaman and a bard and then whatever dps you want I guess and it should be sufficient to progress provided you max out the aa's and use tribute and the proper weapons and gear.

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 4:22 pm
by rogbok
[quote="vallex"]Gear is swell, but first thing I would do (I assume you are 65? if not get there asap) but 130 aa's is not going to cut it. I would grab at least 300 aa's or so on your guys minimum. My group was (2 players total) my buddy boxing a warrior/shaman/bard and I was playing a rogue and cleric, then later added a third box either a zerker or ranger depending on what was needed (more on this later).


Thanks for the response Vallex, all 8 characters are level 65, Shk, cleric x2, Sham, enc, wiz, monk, and ranger.

I ve been helping a friend get Vex keys and we will try again tomorrow, he has 1780 ac and 9.5k hps so it will be very interesting to see how the warrior performs compared to my shk 2030ac and 9386hps. ( warrior has all hps AA, i have none at this stage).

I take your advice about melee dps i was thinking about swapping out the enc for a bard since the enc dps is very low, now my wiz has 68 in combat mana regen he is rarely oom but i guess swapping him out with melee could be an option especially if i drop the enc (no mana regen buff). My only concern in doing so is the micromanagement required to box melee.

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 8:29 pm
by vallex
Are you using Macro quest? this makes boxing melee a lot easier. Having a bard is required like i said, but also you don't really need an enc and a shaman, chanter's only job really is slow and a shaman does that better. Also on the point of shaman they add a boatload of dps with panther (which is another reason why you need melee dps).

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 9:09 pm
by Control
Thanks for the great reply Vallex!

Balancing things is always tricky, and I certainly don't think it's perfect here. After the initial setup and tuning period, I've mostly taken a philosophy of only fixing what's broken. I feel like a lot of players (and probably server admins too) are too quick to decide that something needs changing based on a very specific situation. It's also very difficult to see the secondary effects of a given change, even when you're looking for them (which most people don't). It's why you even see terrible, terrible changes made on live games staffed with hundreds of employees.

EQ allows for huge variances in effectiveness. The difference between optimal and middling can be massive. A group composition is MUCH better than a bad group. A well geared/AA's player can be MUCH better. A good player can be MUCH better. Of course, some of it depends on the class and encounter, but still, when you stack those changes together, the difference between average and optimal can be HUGE. And if you balance everything to the average, it's going to be completely trivial for the optimal.

Of course, I don't think everything should be balanced for the optimal, but I think it's ok that the very top-end content is. For example, plenty of people have killed Fennin, only a handful have killed Quarm, and those that did either went to some pretty exceptional lengths or used more people. That seems pretty much in the spirit of EQ to me.

raid targets are too strong for a group e.g. level 50 group equipped with best in slot 50 gear can't take down that expansions raid targets


Ok so you can kill Naggy/Vox easily at 50. Sky? probably not. (Fear/Hate are post-upgrade, so they're Velious level, and you can take them with a Velious level group).
You can kill Trak with a Kunark level/gear group. (VP is upgraded version, so GoD era)
AoW would be rough, but you could likely do most of ToV with a Velious group (note that Vulak is the upgraded version).
Not sure about Luclin tbh, but I would guess that you could get through the vast majority of it with an optimal group.

(Also consider that on Live, the hardest piece of content per expansion was usually only doable by a tiny number of uberguilds before the next expansion released, and even then, it was only after months of gearing up, failed attempts, and finding exploits to leverage.)

So no, it may not even be possible to do every fight here with only what was available at the time, but the problem is that practically no one plays that way unless it's forced. If you made it "reasonable" to do so, it would be utterly trivial for optimal and/or overleveled/geared groups. Trying to balance around that would would literally mean rebalancing the entire game, and it probably wouldn't feel very much like EQ afterwards.

On your specific situation (assuming that I checked the right toons, and apologies if not):
If you're tying to clear VT without taking advantage of anything beyond Luclin (including lv60 and the accompanying aa's), it SHOULD be as hard as Time and probably should require pretty close to optimal group comp, gear, aa's, and execution. While you are 65, there are a lot of suboptimal bits too. Your tank has a reasonable number of aa's, assuming that they're spent well, but he is an SK. SK's can tank well enough, but if you're pushing the edge of what's do-able, then every sub-optimal piece adds up.

The rest of your group still needs to catch up on AAs, so even though you're 65, you're still missing a lot of effectiveness that would come with an optimized luclin-era group. 150ish aa pretty well covers things in that era I think, but your average is well below 100. And two of your toons have basically no aa at all. I would probably take a lv60-150aa cleric over a 65/0 cleric. Hit/miss rate based on level may help the tank/dps, but your support classes don't gain as much benefit from the levels unless it's unlocking some crucial new spell.

The rest of the group isn't exactly optimal either. Unless you're charming with the chanter, he's not bringing much to the table (not even sure that's possible in VT) as long as you also have a shammy. You clearly need one slower on mobs that are slowable, but even the shammy ends up as dead weight on unslowables (puma might make enough of a difference to make up for a missing dps, not sure without parsing). I assume the wiz falls pretty far behind the melee dps. I assume the ranger does ok, but I haven't really parsed one, and your monk has no aa's.

BUT, the point isn't to say that everything always has to be optimal, because even with all that, you got this beastly, unslowable, endgame mob to 40%. Once your group maxes out their Luclin AA, he should be a dead mob. With a different group composition, he'd be dead already. Just consider what a sub-optimal comp causes you to give up before assuming that things are impossible. If your characters were an ideal mix with max luclin aa's, your DPS would probably triple while taking far less damage (and you'd still have a few hundred useful aa to get for PoP left to go).

So maybe a better description would be "95% reasonably-groupable, 5% optimally-groupable"? (Shit, it's probably even "70% entirely-non-reasonably-groupable" lol). Doesn't roll off the tongue very well though :)

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 9:23 pm
by Control
vallex wrote:Are you using Macro quest?


Hehe, that's a really good point too. Unless you're an absolutely amazing boxer, you're just going to be plain worse than someone who's halfway decent at using MQ. I've boxed both with and without it for a number of years, and even though I thought I was pretty great at it, when you're trying to manage an entire reasonable* group, some things are just damned hard to do manually. Trying to run a full group complete with twisting bard pre-/twist comes to mind lol.
(*I say "reasonable" because you could multicast 6 mages or wiz's without a problem or run your own CH chain group.)

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2018 4:50 pm
by Fierlen
Not only is Diabo Xin Xin Thall unslowable but he Yaulp V or IV's himself so has 40% haste or whatever it is. Diabo Xin Xin Thall in VT is probably one of the top five hardest mobs currently outside of Plane of Time, or at least the Elemental Planes. Really, the only challenging pre-Elemental mobs are Emp Ssra, Diabo Xin Xin Thall, Avatar of War and strangely enough two of the three trials in HoHA. The trials are only difficult due to having to round the mobs up before they kill the NPC's you need to save and Emp Ssra because of the adds. In the Elemental Planes, look out for: Rathe Council; Coirnav event; Warlord Gintolaken; Avatar of Dust; and if the event works, Peregrin Rockskull. Rathe Council and Coirnav are only hard because they are timed events and Peregrin because he is unslowable. I guess you could put Xygoz from Veeshan Peak in there as well.

I agree with what the others have said about getting your AA's. Also, it may not be fair or fun but you kind of have to play required classes in order to advance through certain encounters on this server. If you and a friend are playing four characters each for a total of 8 characters, make sure one of you is at least playing a warrior. If you swap out the wizard and enchanter for a bard and monk/zerker/rogue you will pretty much trivialize everything up to Plane of Time. Having only tried Plane of Time with one cleric instead of two, you may just trivialize that was well. As was mentioned earlier, make sure you are using Macroquest for boxing since it makes things much easier.

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2018 8:57 pm
by Stizok
Played around a bit in elemental zones, as I got my flag yesterday. Here are two observations that I think should be addressed.

(1)
Tried to spawn Derugoak Bloodwalker in PoE today.
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=12335

Killed the 30 "A tained Rock Beast", then 20 "A Bloodthirsty Vegerog" spawn. These Vegerogs have massive hps (and hp regen like the Rock Beasts). Takes one group like 5 minutes+ to take out one. And there are 20. By the time I killed the 2nd, most Rock Beasts had respawned around them, and I had to abort mission.
I assume "A Bloodthirsty Vegerog" are not tuned down and would still require a proper raid to take out within reasonable time (they don't hit hard, but are too hard to kill).

(2)
Some flying mobs in PoAir (the birds for example) are half way in the ground. Therefore not attackable. And they summon the tank into the ground as well. Had to abort mission here as well.

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:55 pm
by Fierlen
Here is what I can suggest since these problems have been around forever... In Plane of Air, try to fight the mobs at their spawn point. I know it is easier said than done but it was pretty much the only work around. Other than that, try have some pets up to help kill mobs that fall under the floor.

As for Plane of Earth A, I would say to just skip it altogether. I know Control tried to fix the Ring events but they are buggy at best. I know Mystical Arbitor of Earth was made a static spawn at one point and probably still is. Kill him and move on unless you are a completionist. If you want to read about PoE A adventures with the Ring events, look back to December 01 and 02, 2016 in this thread.

I'm not internet competent enough to link it.

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 4:58 am
by Fierlen
Sorry, I can't figure out how to edit posts. Some of the Plane of Earth A event bugs are listed in the Bugs and Problems thread, not this one.

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:37 pm
by vallex
i recall using Illusion clickies (Guise for example) to get back thru the floor if you get summoned in PoA. So if you get summoned theu the floor by the mob kill it down there and then clickie back up? maybe i'm remembering that wrong.

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2018 2:53 pm
by eustaceoshea
Hi, I got my Paladin to 65 and noticed there's no pbAOE stun and no self-only heal.

It may be that I've done a lot of emulation server hopping about; however, I've seen a lot of pbAOE stuns at 65+ and a lot of self-only heals at the same level range. Not having those things may be more in tune with how live was; however, I didn't play a pally on live. Having them would make it easier for me to handle adds during encounters such as Phara Dar and make it more viable for me to solo (in full ornate sans bp) more than Sebilis.

My suggestion is that the PBAOE stun contain a group heal component for more aggro.
I also suggest that the paladin-only (oh @#$!) heal contain a component that stuns the Paladin who uses it for 4-6 seconds.

Thanks for your consideration!

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 4:54 pm
by eustaceoshea
One of the server goals is to make things where you still have to play a little to progress but without making it feel like a job.

To this end, I'd like to suggest you add a component to Xellana (who seems to be for decoration at the moment) to exchange plat for aa's. For example, if you hand Xellana 3kpp, she rewards you with 50 AA points to spend. Exchanging plat for aa's would make soloing more viable without making the xp grind for aa's too easy.

The grind for aa's wouldn't be made too easy by adding in plat-for-AA's because the "best" places to currently farm xp if you are in a group or boxing a group are BoT, the Tower of Sol Ro and PoTactics. Neither of these three zones drop very much in the way of pp. Places where you would farm plat, like Chardok or Old Sebilis, give very little xp but enough plat to make soloing these places a viable alternative to boxing a group just so you can grind AA's.

To be frank, only by adding in a plat exchange for AA's would bring soloing up to par with boxing a group when it comes to the AA grind. For tank class mains, like my paladin, it isn't even viable to solo in Plane of Storms because all of the mobs cast (and my resists suck) and it isn't viable to solo in PoInnovation because even though these mobs are light blue, they take off running and I don't yet have the AA's or the solo dps to keep them from training me with 3-5 more mobs before I smack them dead as they run away. (And I reiterate there are AA's which are great for taking down a fleeing mob; but, you have to have the points to spend to have them.)

Getting AA's for pp is in accord with the server goals because it would make the solo experience more enjoyable in regards to the AA grind as a mitigation for those who are unable to or disinclined to box a group for grinding AA's without removing the need to play at least a little in order to progress.

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2018 1:02 pm
by vallex
I kinda feel like aa's on this server aren't too bad to get, mind you I always played a dps so perhaps it would be slower for non dps classes.

3 k plat for 50 aa's however would completely trivialize the aa grind, as you can probably crank out 3 k plat an hour in Sebilis. Also you would be getting xp while killing frogs as well, you could max your aa's in a few hours.

I understand that soloing for aa's is slow but then soloing for cash to buy aa's is also slow and for people that box a couple or 3 classes (inc playing a dps or 2) would rip thru aa's super fast. This isn't really meant to be a solo server.

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 8:50 am
by michahs1
argh it won't let me post for some bizzaro reason, so i'll keep it short. i'm suggesting we add a copy of Magus Wenla from Nedaria's Landing to PoK as a LDoN and GoD porter. basically the other magus's have a tendency to crash zones or lag clients out for some reason, but he does not. so perhaps if we have that porting option from PoK, we can avoid some crashes, yay pls let me post this time

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 6:38 am
by Feyndal
Stizok wrote:Played around a bit in elemental zones, as I got my flag yesterday. Here are two observations that I think should be addressed.

(1)
Tried to spawn Derugoak Bloodwalker in PoE today.
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=12335

Killed the 30 "A tained Rock Beast", then 20 "A Bloodthirsty Vegerog" spawn. These Vegerogs have massive hps (and hp regen like the Rock Beasts). Takes one group like 5 minutes+ to take out one. And there are 20. By the time I killed the 2nd, most Rock Beasts had respawned around them, and I had to abort mission.
I assume "A Bloodthirsty Vegerog" are not tuned down and would still require a proper raid to take out within reasonable time (they don't hit hard, but are too hard to kill).

(2)
Some flying mobs in PoAir (the birds for example) are half way in the ground. Therefore not attackable. And they summon the tank into the ground as well. Had to abort mission here as well.


1) PoEa events have always been a sore spot on emu's everywhere , and most are skipable for progression (just need to kill the big lizard for key and then the big elemental for flag into PoEb afaik)

2) also a common issue and easily avoidable , don't pull them from different floors or through the doors of their room , instead rush them and fight them at their spawn , pathing in PoA has always been an issue because of the various platforms on various heights , similar to PoTorment altho torment doesn't have double floors for them to get stuck under (in most places lol).
If you do get a bird under the floor , and it hasn't gotten enough dmg to start summoning , then you can still recover by pulling it to a lower platform or floor if you are on the 2nd floor of that bird area.

Re: Changes and Suggestions

Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2019 5:02 pm
by cassmoneys
Hi, I was curious if there was an AA reset ability? I purchased a couple AA's on characters and then find maybe it wasn't what I wanted or might be not working/broken/xpac/etc Would it be possible to get this kind of thing or does it exist and I don't know of it? Thanks!