Battlegrounds AA/Level Issues Petition

Written by Feldon on . Posted in PvP/BG/Proving Grounds

To deal with the AA/Level loss from players who jumped into Battlegrounds, we’ve heard from Rothgar on the EQ2 Forums:

There will be no server-wide rollback.  This problem affected about 200 users and rolling each back individually will be much less intrusive than taking down every world and rolling back all of their databases.

Please be sure to petition if you lost AA or XP due to battlegrounds.

WARNING: DO NOT USE BATTLEGROUNDS — AA RESET TO 200

Written by Feldon on . Posted in PvP/BG/Proving Grounds

Minutes after Battlegrounds went live on U.S. servers we are already hearing reports from players of numerous problems when their characters reach the Battlegrounds servers and further problems upon returning to their home servers. Reports include:

  • Alternate Advancement (AA) points are being reset to 200 points.
  • Any percentage gain over your level (for example level 88 with 90% to level 89) is lost.
  • AA trees are completely reset.
  • Macros that use AA-derived spells do not work on Battlegrounds.

At this point, we are advising players to NOT touch Battlegrounds until they are fixed.

Stat Caps and Consolidation

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance

If you read our coverage of Game Update 55 including Consolidated Stats and Primary Stat Changes and have checked out the EQ2Wire Mega-FAQ, you’re probably fully up to speed on the changes to Stats, Stat Consolidation, etc.

But if not, or you want to hear it from the source, timetravelling has posted a thread which covers these topics. He’s received several questions after the fact, so it’s likely that his writeup will continue to evolve.

Sentinel’s Fate Digital Download Arrives Fashionably Late

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping

So today marks the release of the Digital Download in North America and Canada. For those unfortunate souls who couldn’t get their hands on a retail copy, your expansion begins today.

Do you really miss anything by being a week late? Well, there are those server discoveries (which EQ2Players isn’t tracking properly). And there’s the chance of making a lot of plat being first to sell shinies, tradeskilled materials, rare items, etc.

We have received player reports but have not yet empirically confirmed ourselves that there may have been some monkeying around with how combat XP is converted to AA XP. This may be a bug, an oversight, or it may in fact be an intended change. But for now, if these player observations are true, then players joining the expansion today will not be following in their fellow player’s footsteps of briskly earning AAs and picking up levels 2 at a time. Here’s what we know…

Test Server is back online!

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance

Players who do all of their gameplay on Test (and work hard to find and report any bugs they find) were rather concerned about the idea that Test would be down for “a couple of days”. Fortunately, Windslasher has reported in:

Test is now unlocked. Thanks for waiting!

Glip the Gnome also chimed in:

The Test Server is open and ready for business. We just wanted to be super careful that the potential corruption issue relating to battlegrounds affected as few characters as possible.

Antonia Bayle, Bazaar, and Sebilis came up after approximately 3 1/2 hours. We’ll see a similar situation on Thursday when the servers come down for another hotfix (possibly patching Battlegrounds) but Butcherblock, Lucan D’Lere, and Nagafen will be down for additional time. We’ll let you know when we have more exact downtimes.

Xilaxis The Explorer (Labs x4) has neither Pants nor Loot

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, Itemization, Raiding

Several players have reported that Xilaxis the Explorer in the new Labs x4 raid zone is not dropping any loot other than small wooden chests of plat (not a bad reward, but some armor would be nice). Fortunately, timetravelling is on the case:

I found the issue with both his normal- and challenge-mode item tables and corrected them. Should be hotfixed soon, apologies for the frustrations!

No words on those pants though.

   

Can’t Solo to 90?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Grouping

You’ll remember that one of the biggest complaints about the Rise of Kunark expansion is that combat XP was so minimal that hours spent in a dungeon barely budged the adventure level meter. The only means to level was to Solo.

In an ironic twist, players are reporting that it is not possible to level from 80 to 90 entirely by soloing in Sentinel’s Fate.

At level 86 or 87 with mastercrafted or T1/T2 gear, the first wing of the Hole should be no problem for 2-3 casual players. And you’ll earn enough XP to reach 90 in just a few hours of play.

If you are a questaholic, then take a look at using a Chronomage to adjust your level to 70 and do the ~50 new quests in Tenebrous Tangle, Barren Sky, and Bonemire. That, plus some of the easier quests in The Hole (which should be soloable at level 88-89) should get you to 90. I do understand some folks play EQ2 entirely as a solo game (I personally feel there are much better solo games out there, but I digress).

We feel that no one gameplay style should be the “only” way to level, so this is worthy of addressing. Hopefully it won’t take 2 years to fix.

February 23 Hotfix Notes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance

Here are you February 23 Hotfix Notes:

GENERAL

Ole’ Man Silvers should be willing to talk to you now.

Players who have lost or dropped their Huge Tiger Claws for the quest “Justice for Jojo” can loot another pair.

TRADESKILLS

The rare 10 quicksilver +1 rare harvest from gem nodes in Odus is now awarding kaborite instead of ulteran diamond as the rare.

Freeport, Qeynos Guards Packing Heat — and to Speak as a Dragon

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Grouping, Raiding

With every expansion, a few of the guards in Qeynos and Freeport, especially the “stronghold” or most-defended area of each city, in this case North Qeynos and East Freeport, are dinged to a level that would make them perilous to invaders of the opposing alignment.

So imagine our surprise when we logged in after Game Update 55 (coinciding with Sentinel’s Fate) and found that every man, woman, and child guarding the cities of Qeynos and Freeport, in every area of the city, all magically dinged level 95. These guards are packing heat!

Point Blank Range without Eagle’s Talon (Ranger mythical)

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Itemization, Raiding

One of the unique characteristics of the Ranger mythical bow Eagle’s Talon is that it allowed the user to do ranged auto-attacks at point blank range (zero meters distance).

Once a ranger has completed the Epic Repercussions quests, they are awarded an enervated version of Eagle’s Talon with all of the special effects stripped off, and then zero-concentration spells are added to their Knowledge book to get all those unique effects on whatever bow they decide to use. The issue is that those persistent buffs do not grant the ability to use other bows at point blank (0m) range.

Fyreflyte has given some unexpected response on the subject of rangers always being able to use their bows from point blank range:

I feel rangers ought to be encouraged to deal their damage at range. I don’t plan on releasing any more bows with a min range of 0. Standard longbows have a minimum range of 2, which is close enough to use your CAs, so at present there is no benefit to 0 range except that it makes your positioning slightly more convenient.

The issue with having no 0m range bow is that some epic mobs are so gigantic, and their “hit boxes” are so large, that a ranger must back out 20-30 meters to get to a range where both melee and ranged combat arts are usable.

Flyreflyte continued with:

We’ve been discussing this internally, and have some good ideas for it. We’ve been holding off on touching this, however, until we can get a good idea of where everyone’s at after the stat changes and consolidation. Just to quell any suspicions, the ideas all focus on providing an incentive to attack from range, rather than a penalty for using the current melee range methods.

A ranger usually stands at 5 meters so that all of their ranged and melee attacks are available. A ranger that uses only ranged attacks is losing up to 40% of their DPS. It’s usually only done if the mob has a particularly nasty Area of Effect (AoE) attack. We’re not sure how this change will work. Although as he said it’s in the planning stages, not set in stone.

Battlegrounds and Test

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds

The good news:

Battlegrounds are now enabled on Test and Test Copy.

The bad news:

Test is closed until Battlegrounds have passed their sanity checks and considered “ready to go live”. This may be Wednesday or Thursday. OUCH

It doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. Folks on Test are used to things being broken, unstable, etc. They can always just NOT go to Battlegrounds if they are buggy. Posted on EQ2 Forums

Server Downtimes Tue Feb 23 & Thu Feb 25

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance

Tomorrow morning (Tuesday, February 23rd) brings a Hotfix:

We’re going to be bringing down the servers in the morning for brief hotfix.

Also there are 2 Server Downtimes to report from the EQ2 Forums.

Beginning at 6:00 AM PST on Tuesday, February 23, 2010, the Antonia Bayle, Bazaar and Sebilis servers will be offline for maintenance. We expect the downtime to last around 2 hours. (from the forum post)

Beginning at 6:00 AM PST on Thursday, February 25, 2010, the Butcherblock, Lucan D’Lere and Nagafen servers will be offline for maintenance. We expect the downtime to last around 2 hours. (according to the thread title)

Battlegrounds Slip to the 25th

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds

Battlegrounds have slipped again to February 25th. From the EQ2 Forums.

Since we’ve stated in this thread that the Battlegrounds feature is launching on the 23rd with the digital launch, I’m updating here to say that we’re actually going to be pushing it back a few days to put a few extra anti-cheating measures in place.

The plan is for Thursday the 25th If there are any other updates, we’ll let you know!

Making Sense of Faction Illusions in the Hole

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance

Many folks (including myself) have been trying to figure out the purpose of the Gruegnach illusion available from the NPC when you first zone into The Hole, and what, if any benefit it creates.

There’s a thread on the EQ2 Forums which works out exactly how it works. It’s rather tricky to say the least, but at least we now know what EQ2 Devs were aiming for.

UPDATE: timetravelling indicates in the same thread I linked above that he is aware of the complexity of how this illusion works and will be working to clean things up.

Leveling Slowdowns

Also, in an effort to slow down leveling in The Hole, the quests to turn in horseshoes, paws, tails, etc. have been modified to only be repeatable once daily. I’m actually kind of sad to see this but considering I was able to gain half a level just standing in 1 spot repeatedly hailing the NPC, I can see why the change was made. There are clearly some issues with the leveling speed in EQ2 from 80-90 right now.

I know I will get some hate mail saying “What does it harm letting us level as fast as we want?” but I think it negatively affects the health of the game if the de facto level that all players are expected to be is level 90.

News Rollup for Feb 15-19

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance, Live Events, Tradeskill

It has been an interesting week, to say the least. Expansion launch weeks always are. It’s also been a rather bumpy ride for the servers and developers resolving issues that made it through Beta.

We’re trying to get back into the habit at EQ2Wire of skimming the forums and finding the gems of info which may be of interest to our readers. Here’s the standouts for this week:

  • What is the Golden Path?
  • Adornment and Tinkering Recipes Not Dropping
  • Guard Level bump to 95
  • TSO Tradeskill Instance recipe books
  • Will of aTyrant questlines remain
  • nVidia 3D Vision
  • Shaders 3.0


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