Test: Upcoming Roehn Theer Changes?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Raiding

EQ2 Test Update Notes give a glimpse of what changes we may expect in the future of EQ2. They are always subject to change, sometimes due to player input, sometimes because an item is not ready to go live yet (i.e. Multi Attack over 100%). We nevertheless keep an ear to the ground and an eye on the EQ2 Test Update Notes and occasionally present that information here.

The detailed Test Update Notes, which can be found on the EQ2 Forums, contain numerous tweaks and fixes large and small. October 28th’s notes reference the Currency window, Tradeskill Writs, Stonewill effects, Heroic Resistance effects, LoN-dropped Petamorph wands, the Heroes Festival, and Battlegrounds. Pretty routine stuff. But a line item in these Test Notes was brought to our attention which may have a substantial impact on Raid Progression:

  • It should no longer be possible to bug the swarm adds portion of the Roehn Theer fight.

Roehn Theer is a unique fight in that the difficulty is chosen by the raid and there are 1, 2, 3, and 4-rune versions, each adding an additional effect the raid force must survive.

EQ2Wire Mailbox: For those guilds that are taking down the 3- and 4- rune versions of Roehn Theer, will this change affect your raid force? If so, is this an unnecessary roadblock, or a well-considered exploit closure? We’d like to hear your comments!

   

Feedback Wanted ~ Fan Faire 2011 Hotel & Dates

Written by Dethdlr on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), DGC Wants Feedback

SOE wants to know where and when people would prefer to have Fan Faire 2011.  Your choices are Vegas or Vegas.  Go vote for your prefered hotel and dates.   Amnerys posted this on the official forums:

It’s that time again folks! Time to tell us where and when you want to attend Fan Faire 2011! We have two choices for you, both of them in Las Vegas. The first one sends us back to Bally’s, July 7th through the 9th. The other option takes us to the Hilton, August 4th through the 6th. Head on over to the Fan Faire forums to vote in the official poll and let us know which dates you prefer.

The poll includes hotel room prices, as well, to help you make your decision. Registration prices will be announced at a later date.

Thanks so much for your input on this year’s Fan Faire! We can’t wait to see you there, at whichever option is chosen!

Test: Heroes’ Festival Activated on Test and Test Copy

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Live Events

Posted on the EQ2 Forums by Kaitheel:

The Heroes’ Festival has begun! A call has gone out to all Norrathian adventurers to commemorate the six years of questing, raiding, tradeskilling, house decorating and socializing. Celebrators, happy to share in the festivities, can be found in North and South Qeynos or West and North Freeport.

You may spot some odd things, due to the overlap of both the Nights of the Dead and Heros’ Festival running at the same time, right now. But keep in mind that this will not be the case when it goes live. Currently, the event is scheduled to run on live servers, 11/19/10 through 11/30/10.

If you have any feedback or bugs, please post it in this thread so that we will be sure to see it. Thank you!

No word yet on whether the player-submitted paintings (which were available last year for just 6 days) will be available again this year.

Better Way to Invite Alts to Guilds?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Grouping

If you’re an officer or leader of a small guild, odds are there have been times late at night, or really any time when you have been the only one logged in, yet wanted to invite your own alts to the guild. Previously, you’ve had to wait until another officer or leader of the guild signed on, or signed in another account, to invite your alts.

File this under M for Maybe, but that Guru of GUIs, Rothgar, has had a brainstorm on a possible solution. There is no announced date, and there may be unforeseen issues, but it’s worth a look.

Marketplace Items on Test – Feedback Requested

Written by Dethdlr on . Posted in Daybreak Cash, DGC Wants Feedback, Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

SmokeJumper is looking for feedback on placing F2P marketplace items on the test server.  He posted this on the official forums:

Hey, folks,

We don’t have a big enough population on the Test server to run two different Test servers (one for EQII Live and one for EQ2X), and we’d like to get your feedback on whether you think it’s appropriate for us to allow the EQ2X marketplace items to show up on Test.

Since the items are optional, it shouldn’t make much of a difference in your play style, but it would allow us to test them on a real server before they go Live.

Additionally, for anyone interested, they’d probably help leveling a bit, which is always somewhat of a hurdle on this lower-population server.

What do you think?

Thanks for your feedback.

Commentary:

I personally agree with many of the other posters that have already replied who think this would work much better if done on Test Copy. Test Copy gets wiped periodically anyway and gives unlimited station cash. This would seem to be the perfect place to “test” marketplace items.

What’s on Test? Guardian changes, UI tweaks, and More

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, Raiding

What’s on Test this weekend? Here are just a few items:

  • UI: The XP bar will now stay put between logins.
  • UI: Designers of custom UIs can now set the XP bar to not “snap” to top/bottom.
  • UI: The Character window has seen multiple improvements.
  • UI: The Implied Target arrow now reflects the ‘con’ color of the enemy, and can have its opacity adjusted.
  • Items: 2-handed Weapons and Ranged Weapons have had their damage ratings increased. Ranged weapons will also have a bit of a damage penalty in PvP to compensate.
  • The Guardian class has had over 25 changes made.
  • Resident’s of Omen’s Call (Fens of Nathsar) now have a World Travel Globe on their dock.
  • Items: The Wicked Wand of Malice effect has been changed to on-equip.
  • The Palace of Roehn-Theer zone-in bug has been fixed.

If you’re wondering about other announced changes which aren’t on Test yet, they will come later. For instance Ranged Flurry and Ranged AA Auto-Attack changes are still in the queue. Remember, Game Update 57b is still 4-7 weeks away.

If you haven’t tested out these changes yet on the Test server, check em out!

Complete update notes after the jump…

Implied Target Arrow Feedback Sought

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Raiding

When you target another player (say your group’s tank, or the raid Main Assist) to channel your damage through, it is sometimes helpful to not only see the Target Arrow (who you have selected), but the Implied Target Arrow (the enemy which your target has chosen). This can be especially important for scouts.

So players have asked for a way to customize or more easily distinguish the color and opacity of the Implied Target Arrow.

Rothgar’s comments after the jump…

Olihin Addresses Raft of PvP Questions, Issues

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

Remember when Player-vs-Player was the red-headed stepchild of EQ2? Remember when there wasn’t even a PvP developer, but instead those tasks were delegated to developers who already had a full workload? Fast forward to today and one of the areas of the game getting the most attention is the PvP side, including those issues that extend into Battlegrounds.

So let’s go down the list of responses so far from PvP developer Olihin

Illusionist Class Issues

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Raiding

Xelgad has responded to a detailed thread on Illusionist Class Issues:

Hey guys, long time no see! We got some good feedback at Fan Faire which I wanted to share.
I agree that Time Warp ended up being more annoying than it is fun or rewarding. Unfortunately, it was one of those things that looked okay on paper but didn’t work in practice. We have it changed internally so that there is no longer an immunity timer associated with the spell, and it now grants the Illusionist the buff as well as the target. This should be coming to the test servers with (or before) GU58. If you want, you can just macro the spell to a group member and spam it as a self-buff, but I envision some players being more tactical with it. You can even spam it on yourself, but you don’t get double benefit – unless, of course, you cast it on your pet. We also changed the icon so that the warning icon looks different than the actual buff, and the buff now looks like the Tsunami (Monk ability) icon, so that it shouldn’t be shared with any other mage abilities.

Some of your other issues, such as buffs providing no benefit due to being capped, will be addressed with the upcoming expansion. There are some other changes that we hope to make before the expansion, but I can’t promise anything yet.

Please feel free to continue to post constructive feedback.

Monks to be thrown a Bone?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Raiding

In response to a detailed list of issues with the Monk Class, Xelgad has provided an unexpected commentary:

Thanks for the up to date thread!

I can’t give an ETA, but we are looking for ways to make Monks more viable in AE-oriented content, especially with heroic content in mind. If the change benefits both brawlers, all the better. In that light, Crane Twirl would seem like a great candidate for a change, but I think the advancement is, at worst, balanced compared to other alternate advancements in the slot, and forcing everyone to take that one would not be an ideal solution. We may end up bitting the bullet on that, but a class ability change similar to the changes planned for Recapture and Plant would probably be a better way to go. If you have ideas for changes like that to the monk class, we’d love to hear them.

Again, we’re very busy here with all the mechanics changes we’re trying to get live and the upcoming expansion so I can’t give an exact time frame but Monks are on our radar.

You can provide your feedback on Monk issues and Xelgad’s response in the EQ2 Forums thread entitled Monk Changes Discussion.

Xelgad responds to The Paladin Problem

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, Raiding

Xelgad has posted a flurry of responses to specific class issues today.

This one, in regards to Critical Heals which have been removed from all fighters. For some fighter classes, critical heals might have been overpowered, but for Paladins (joshingly referred to as Healadins), losing all crititical heals has had class altering effects not only in solo situations (which this nerf was intended to fix) but in group and raid setups.

Ranged AE Autoattack & Flurry, Bow Changes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, Raiding

We’ve been hearing about some ranger love for about 3 expansions now, but at Fan Faire, we heard the first concrete info. Xelgad has elaborated on just what we can expect in an update falling between GU57 and GU58 (hopefully 4-6 weeks from now:

Greetings, Mighty Forces!

AE Auto-Attack and Flurry are indeed on the way for bows. We’re also removing the 20% damage penalty for bows, and we’re increasing the damage rating on all 81-90 bows (along with throwing weapons) by about 10%. The intent is to allow you guys to get full benefit from buffs and gear, not to make the class entirely focused on Auto-Attack.

You know how you get more auto-attack damage from your melee weapons in many cases than from your bow? These changes should fix that, unless your melee weapons are simply of much higher quality than your bow. At most, your auto-attack may jump from ~20% of your parse up to ~30% on raids, but I’d be surprised if many people end up with it higher than that.

Thanks for all of your feedback.

You can join the discussion on this issue in the thread What’s this all about? (bow changes) on the EQ2 Forums.

Possible Movement on Betrayal?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback

With now 16 neutral character classes, available in both good and evil alignments, and with recent expansions rarely distinguishing between good and evil when handing out quests, it’s not a surprise that the question of Alignment and the painful (and costly) process of Class Betrayal gets revisited on the forums frequently.

However thus far, the official response as been “We have no intention to make it easier, or take away any of the consequences. Betrayal is supposed to have a cost.”

PvP Feedback from Fan Faire to drive GU58 and Beyond

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

Sometimes people don’t believe it, but I know for a fact that developers at Fan Faire really do listen, or at the very least take extensive notes which they reflect upon when getting home.

Some changes are relatively easy and make a lot of sense when the context is explained interactively in a conversation with the developer. Of course big sweeping changes are unlikely while the developers are already in full press mode working on the next expansion, but it’s great when open discussion at Fan Faire can trigger a small but significant improvement. So enough of that…

Olihin (PvP and Battlegrounds dev) has posted a writeup of all the changes he is currently considering or outright planning for the future. He has already indicated that the earliest we might see some of these changes is Game Update 58, but there are no promises. Further, Olihin is requesting feedback on these changes. They are far from going live, so now is your chance for constructive conversation.

   

Live: EQ2 Mechanics and Class Balance Panel

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), DGC Wants Feedback, Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Raiding

EQ2 Mechanics and Class Balance panel.

Rich Waters, Greg “Rothgar” Spence, Paul “Frizznik” Carrico, Mike “Xelgad” Ganz.

Update: As of 2:00AM CDT I have made some cleanup and additional information added to these notes based on memory. There are 3-4 missing questions which will get filled in after the video is reviewed.

Antonia Bayle Rocking on New Hardware

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance

With the migration of Nagafen server last week and today’s moving day for Antonia Bayle complete, we should now see whether the new servers finally vanquish the lag monster.

Rothgar is seeking player feedback on the server upgrade and, if the move proves successful, we will hopefully see the migration of all servers to new hardware.

With this morning’s maintenance, Antonia Bayle received some new hardware which should greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the lag you’ve been experiencing. We will be monitoring the new hardware and phasing out the old hardware over time.

Please share your experiences with us.

Getting Copied to Test Copy Quicker

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback

Zoltaroth has made some changes to the automated Test Copy scripts so that characters will copy within hours rather than being on a 24-48 hour cycle as they are now. To copy a character to Test Copy, type /testcopy add on any live server. You will then need to choose to login to the Test server when starting up EQ2 with your choice of launcher.

Game Update 57 Update Notes for Test/Test Copy

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, DGC Wants Feedback, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, PvP/BG/Proving Grounds, Raiding, Tradeskill

Game Update 57 is now up on  the Test and Test Copy Servers and we’ve got the Update Notes. We’ve already taken some new screen shots of the new default interface including the new pictorial tutorials for new players.

  • User Interface – One of the touted features of Game Update 57 is the revamped User Interface. The Persona and Inventory windows have been merged into a Character window. The XP bar has become a sort of “dock” at the bottom of your screen. All buttons and window corners have been rounded off. And for the most part, everything that was blue is now red! No doubt UI modders will come out with a classic re-skin to turn everything back to blue. We will be posting a preview of the GU57 Interface Changes soon. Discussed Here
  • Map Points of Interest – Many points of interest have been added to the default map, including quest locations. This will provide some of the functionality of EQ2Maps.
  • Additional Travel Revamp – There have been additional revamps to Travel. With path linking, you can now choose the ultimate destinations of any inter-zone travel and it will “connect the dots” to get you there. All transport pads in Kingdom of Sky connect to all others, and travel between the three Kingdom of Sky zones is much easier.
  • Character Creation & More Neutrals – The Character Creation screens have been revamped, and several more classes have become neutral, including Assassin, Ranger, Templar, Inquisitor, Coercer, Illusionist, Monk and Bruiser.
  • Extraneous Spells/CAs Removed from Levels 1-15 – Many spells and combat arts that new players generally did not use at level 1-20, such as Taunts, De-Agros, Agro-reduction, etc. have been postponed until level 15+ to decrease the number of new spells/CAs that players are exposed to in the increasingly brief sprint from level 1-20. First Discussed Here
  • Spell Effects Visual Revamp which was rumored for GU55 is now on Test. This is an update/revamp of the animation which plays for each beneficial and hostile effect cast by characters.
  • Lucan D’Lere has returned!
  • Additional Tradeskill Quests have been added at level 20 and 30.
  • Starting Zone Conflicts – Frostfang Sea (New Halas) and Greater Fay starting zones are now under attack by invaders, adding an additional level of interest to these zones. In addition, Gorowyn has received yet another architectural revamp to hopefully improve navigation.
  • General – You can also expect the usual array of tweaks and bugfixes to raid zones, battlegrounds, AA lines, Quests, and Items. Most classes got some kind of benefit here.

As this is all on Test and Test Copy, the EQ2 team are really looking for bug reports, feedback, and comments on everything that’s been added.

Complete Game Update 57 Notes after the jump…

The Intangibility of the Test Copy Server

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback

Test Copy has always been a temporary server, subject to complete wipes of all characters and guilds. In fact, the Test Copy server started out as a PvP Test server, and while it has been a PvE server for over 2 years now, the PvP switch has been “flipped” a few times for testing of Battlegrounds and PvP content leading up to Sentinel’s Fate.

Despite all cautions to the contrary, some players have built up characters and guilds on Test Copy, so they may be interested to know that another wipe is happening. Test Copy is currently down (we’re a bit late on the news) and when it comes back, we are hearing that it will be in a fresh state for testing, with no characters or guilds.

From Bunji on the EQ2 Forums:

Just a heads up that Test Copy is being brought offline (as early as today) and its database is being wiped.

We’re going to try and get Test Copy back up sometime tomorrow (7/13).

Split Personality: The War on Easy XP

Written by Feldon on . Posted in DGC Wants Feedback, Grouping

So we just had a Double XP weekend over the July 4th holiday. It was heavily promoted, and featured in an e-mail and on the forums. EQ2 Senior Producer SmokeJumper posted about spending almost the entire weekend playing and how quickly he earned levels, AAs, and how many groups he got.

Now, apparently, it’s time for the pendulum to swing the other way.

Yesterday’s Test Server Update Notes include the following details which will eventually make it to Live servers:

GENERAL

Many instances from Deserts of Flame and Kingdom of Sky are now persistent.  This includes Ancient’s Table, Cazel’s Mesa, Scornfeather Roost, The Halls of Fate, The Blackscale Sepulcher, The Den of the Devourer, The Vaults of El’Arad, and The Nest of the Great Egg.

It will be impossible to repeatedly zone into and out of these zones, killing all the mobs inside multiple times.


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