Kael Drakkel Rewards Beefed Up

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

Looks like the contested Kael Drakkel group dungeon just got some more reasons for people to go back! From Kander on the EQ2 Forums:

Due to the hotfix schedule, we should have everything listed in by Tuesday March 15th. The stuff in bold is in now and the rest will be in next Tuesday.

  • PoI Quests have been made repeatable once a day (6 quests) and grant faction and shards
  • Trash drops, including rare fabled drops are being added to the zone tables.
  • Bosses now have a chance to drop shards.
  • Trash now has a chance to drop shards.
  • The experience has been raised significantly.
  • Most if not everything loot oriented is tradeable.

Also all named in Kael Drakkel are now flagged to give AA experience every time you kill them. That went in this morning I believe.

   

Velious: A Continent Divided by Faction

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Grouping, Itemization, Live Events, Raiding

When Velious was announced, lots of folks asked for Faction to matter. Wish granted! 🙂

Faction must be acquired with the Othmir, Snowfang Gnolls, Thurgadin, and Ry’Gorr to buy their adornments (unique to each faction) and gear, and it can be rather slow-going!

The Othmir, Snowfang Gnolls, and Ry’Gorr all have daily (18 hour repeatable) quests to kill overland mobs and gain faction. Crabs for the Othmir quests occasionally drop an item which provides an additional faction boost. Alas, Thurgadin faction must be gained by running dungeons.

A variety of rewards become available once faction milestones of 10,000, 20,000, and 40,000 are reached. After completing all of the solo quests in Velious, most folks will end up with at or above 7,000 faction with each so the first items should be available in just a few days, with the better rewards taking a couple of weeks to earn.

Public Quests drop Cloudy Velium Jewels which can be sold to any of the 4 factions for +500 faction. Also, mobs inside the contested Kael Drakkel can be killed for a small amount of faction gain as well. If you’ve only done the Othmir quests at the arrival point in Velious (Great Divide), you’ve only gotten half the story (and are missing a good chunk of faction). Head to the Eastern Wastes once you’re done.

Thurgadin also has their own crafting faction, the Forgemasters of Thurgadin and you’ll want to befriend them if you are interested in acquiring the Coldain Prayer Shawl. And there are plenty of opportunities to work on Far Seas Supply Division faction, as well as Order of Rime faction if you are one of those people. 😉

UPDATE: This article has received a substantial rewrite since its original publication and is now part of a series of articles about Faction in Velious.


After the jump, we talk more about what else you can get for your hard-earned faction in Velious…

Critical Oversight in Public Quests Gear?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Grouping, Live Events, Raiding

Players have been surprised by a change in Thursday’s Game Update affecting the Critical Mitigation of Fighter armor received from Public Quests.

As we know, both Public Quests award armor upgrades for hands (gloves) and legs. Storm Gorge PQ’s also award armor for head and feet (boots), while Ring War PQs award armor for shoulders and wrists. There are also rare drops from these events, including Fabled chest pieces and Weapons.

During Beta, Othmir solo quest givers offered a full set of armor which was essentially Sentinel’s Fate Tier 1 raid armor minus adornment slots. After Beta concluded, this was changed to be more of a progression from Sentinel’s Fate heroic gear. You’ll recall that we were cautioned that Critical Mitigation would be necessary to participate in Velious, even when killing solo mobs.

Public Quest Server Lag Not a Myth!

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Grouping, Live Events, Raiding

Although there are many things we can do on our end to reduce poor performance when playing EQ2, Public Quests have really pushed things to the limit both on the client and AND the server end. Especially in Storm Gorge which has some 60 combatants in the highest difficulty setting. In the past, there have been some tit-for-tat arguments about people’s slow computers vs. issues on the EQ2 servers themselves. While there is a lot players can do to reduce graphics performance aka “client lag”, it is up to the EQ2 devs to tackle any issues on the SOE servers.

Fortunately, Rothgar has stepped up and posted this about Public Quests performance (ironically the thread started on the topic of Gazebo placement griefing):

We are lowering the hard population cap on Great Divide to keep people from working around the soft limit.  We may also change the group teleport mechanic to use the soft cap limits in the near future to keep people from circumventing these limits.

As far as the lag goes in Great Divide, its definitely server lag and isn’t caused by mounts, pets or gazebos.  These things might contribute to your client FPS, but changing your visual settings to a lower option should more than make up it.

We are working on several angles to improve the lag situation in these zones but for this weekend the only thing we’re able to do is reduce the population cap.  We’ve also tweaked the load-balancing settings on this zone so it should get a larger percentage of server resources.

Public Quest Rewards: DPS vs. Support Roles?

Written by Kwill on . Posted in Grouping, Itemization, Raiding

The rewards from public quests have been a hot topic on the community forums lately, with a few players wondering if just healing or playing a support role results in a lesser chest than all out DPS.   As the rumor that only good dps’ers would get the best loot swept the community, some support classes have resorted to dealing out pure dps and not healing, which doesn’t make for a very successful raid.

We may yet hear from the Devs on this issue, but until then, the only information available is from the core design of public quests. Our understanding of the dynamics of public quests is that rewards are awarded to stop players from hitting the bad guys a couple of times and then going AFK,  and to reward those people who participate fully.  Instead of the normal loot drop system, public quests use “participation scoring” to determine what reward each player gets at the end of the encounter.   The game keeps track of everything a player does during the encounter, which includes contributing to a kill, spells cast, and noncombat interactions.  The players with the most activity get the best loot.  It’s not competitive, either, so if everyone contributed equally, everyone gets a good individual reward.

How Much Crit Chance To Crit 100%?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Grouping, Raiding

As you may know, in Destiny of Velious, certain dungeons reduce your Critical Chance by a fixed amount. You thus need to go over 100% just to reach 100% critical chance. Thanks to Buffrat for collecting this information and posting it on EQ2Flames.

You need the following crit chance in velious to crit 100%:

Estimated Crit Numbers:
Heroic Tower of Frozen Shadow (ToFS) Zones – 150% Crit
Heroic Kraytoc Zones – 150% Crit
Heroic Kael Drakkel (KD) Zones – 200% Crit

March 4, 2011 Update Notes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Live Events, Raiding

Great news if you have been running Public Quests and been rather puzzled at Legendary (or Fabled) gear with Yellow adornment slots, yet receiving Red adornments (which only go on Raid gear). Now, you will get a select window/choice for Yellow or Red, and it’s based on archetype.

After the jump, your update notes for March 4, 2011:

Dethdlr’s Dungeon – Group Setup

Written by Dethdlr on . Posted in Dethdlr's Dungeon, Grouping, Guide

Dethdlr's Dungeon

Intro

With the release of Destiny of Velious, the starting instances seem to be a bit tougher and the encounters require a bit of strategy to take them down.  This can make it a bit rough on the casual players/guilds.  I previously wrote an article on how to figure out an encounter that includes lots of tips on figuring out a strategy for a given MOB.  However, the best strategy in the world isn’t going to work if your group setup is awful.  There are 24 classes in EQ2 but only 6 slots in a group.  How do you go about putting together a group from the 24 available classes in order to take down an encounter?

This article will attempt to answer that question…

Next Public Quest: Pit of the Awakened & Portals

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Grouping, Live Events, Raiding

We heard about this in Beta, but Windslasher intends to add more Public Quests in future updates, possibly even to older zones. From the EQ2 Forums:

The Eastern Wastes public quests were pulled from the expansion for use in game updates. I can’t reveal what I’ve created for Pit of the Awakened yet. Sorry!

Also, Gninja has heard our pleas and will be adding zone portals near the Public Quests allowing players to join each other in the same zone for PQs, as well as our personal preference: spreading out into different instances of the Great Divide.

I will be adding a portal in the Othmir area and the Thurgadin docks area in Great Divide and the spires area in Eastern Wastes. Keep an eye on the patch notes for this to be coming to the live servers.

There’s nothing sadder than being part of 60 people unable to complete a Public Quest at Difficulty #5 (x4 raid) because of 8 second casting lag. Folks, FAN OUT into other zones please. As long as you have 24 players smoothly and quickly killing mobs, you’ll get the good loot!

This is not the picture of success:

Kael Drakkel Reviewed, Tweaks Incoming

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

Kael Drakkel is making Contested Dungeons in EQ2 sexy again. With 15 names, and the largest zone ever added to EQ2 (it’s larger than Solusek’s Eye), there is a lot to live up to here. The zone is intended to be difficult, with loot somewhere between the hardest Velious instances and beginning raids. It’s a new way of approaching contested dungeons compared to The Hole, Karnor’s Castle, Sebilis, and Chardok which all struggled to keep our attention after a few weeks.

Players have been looking for an old school dungeon crawl and Kael Drakkel seems to deliver. It shows a new commitment to creating dungeons that aren’t irrelevant or abandoned after the first week of the expansion. This is the kind of danger and contested experience we haven’t really seen since Castle Mistmoore and Sanctum of Scaleborn and feedback both during Beta and since launch has been surprisingly positive, even from the most jaded raiders.

Kander took a leading role in designing Kael Drakkel, and seems cautious about making any major changes to it. This seems wise, as subtle changes may be all that is warranted here.

Tuesday, March 1 Update Notes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Itemization, Live Events, Raiding, Tradeskill

It’s one week since the launch of Destiny of Velious and there are always bugs and issues that make it through from the Beta. Today’s update tackles many of them. With today’s update, many of these issues are fixed.

Tradeskillers can now equip their Boreal or Frost Gryphon as a flying mount at level 85 tradeskill. Freebloods who have completed their Cloud of Bats quests can now use it. And the Collector’s Edition (still available as a $25 upgrade today until 10am PST [18:00 GMT] ) Stormfeather Brood Guardian is now usable by 85 tradeskill and 85 adventurer.

The Coldain Ring War and Storm Gorge Public Quests were a lot of fun this weekend, however several issues plagued both, making it difficult or impossible, even with a full raid of 24 players, to reach difficulty #4 or #5 to get the better rewards (including Legendary armor with yellow adornment slots). The Ring War PQ kept scaling down to solo difficulty, and the Storm Gorge PQ seemed to start at maximum difficulty, steamrolling everyone present, rather than ramping up.

We also see bug fixes in various quests, including both the group and raid versions of the Tower of Frozen Shadow.

Dethdlr’s Dungeon – DoV First Impressions

Written by Dethdlr on . Posted in Dethdlr's Dungeon, Grouping, Itemization

Dethdlr's Dungeon

Tomorrow marks a week that Destiny of Velious has been live.  I’ve had time to run through the Icy Fingers quest series on three characters, get my flying mount, check out Thurgadin, and even run through the first quest area in the Eastern Wastes.  I’ve also poked my head into the Tower of Frozen Shadows: Shadowed Corridors.  I’ve learned a few things during this time that I’d like to pass on.  This is mainly meant for the non-raiding portion of our audience since the raiders most likely know all of this information already or have the level of gear so that this doesn’t really apply.

Cheeseburgers and Public Quests

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

A syndrome that I think many people who write about MMOs experience is that find ourselves actually PLAYING the game less and less. I’m certainly guilty of this myself. We get interested in a game, start writing about it based on our experience, and next thing you know we aren’t catching groups or raids anymore. So with Velious I made a commitment to get back in the game.

So one of my first experiences has been getting into Public Quests, which spawned the article yesterday. The concept certainly makes for an interesting type of content, one that was popular in Warhammer and is a huge draw for the new Rift. So far, I have heard feedback from quite a few players who have checked out Public Quests and have gotten mixed results.

   

Appearances Deceiving in Tower of Frozen Shadow

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Expansion News, Grouping

The Tower of Frozen Shadow presents a unique, but familiar approach to dungeon progression. Although the seven (or is it eight?!?) floors of the Tower of Frozen Shadow are split up into 3 group instanced dungeons (Shadowed Corridors, Umbral Halls, and Haunt of Syl’Tor), there are quests that span all three. Completion of those quests is necessary to unlock different floors in the Tower.

UPDATE: Added quotes from Gninja.

Spawn Issues in Older Zones

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Grouping

From Windslasher:

I just got done checking this out and reproduced the bug. It’s not server lag or bad pathing, and doesn’t have anything to do with flying. A small number of spawns that were set up in a certain way have simply stopped working. The worst case of this is the entry room for Obelisk of Ahkzul, but there are other affected creatures as well.

Thanks for reporting this! It will be fixed ASAP.

Refer-a-Friend Gravy Train Ends

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

If you have been abusing milking enjoying the Refer-a-Friend 300% XP bonus for its high speed leveling (and thus AA earning) goodness, especially by parking a level 1 trial account character at the zone-in, well, I’m afraid that has finally come to an end.

From Rich Waters 0n the EQ2 forums:

The Recruit-a-friend program is a great way for you to bring your friends into EverQuest II and help them level up a bit faster by playing together. When you group with a character you’ve recruited, you both gain a hefty 200% experience bonus. Unfortunately, many people were recruiting themselves and using it as a way to power-level their main character, rather than actually playing with a friend.

We’ve added a couple of limitations to the recruit-a-friend bonus to prevent it from being a solo leveling tool. In order to get the recruit-a-friend experience bonus:

9 Cool Things We’re Getting Next Tuesday

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Expansion News, Grouping

Coinciding with each Expansion, there has traditionally been a Game Update. There have been numerous features which are available whether you’ve purchased the expansion or not. Today, we look closer into some of the features that will likely (but which we can certainly not guarantee) be available on Tuesday to all players. It is POSSIBLE that some of these items may end up being flagged Velious-only, so this is our best guess at this point…

Guild Hall Tapestries with Guild Heraldry

File this under things we heard about since the Fan Faire that launched EQ2Wire where Guild Halls were furst premiered, but at long last, we’re getting Guild Hall Tapestries with Guild Heraldry on them! Crafters will be able to craft a blank Tapestry item which, once you place it in your house or guild hall, it will adopt your guild heraldry. Some last-minute changes to the appearance were being made, so we don’t have a screen shot for you. If you’ve forgotten what Guild Heraldry looks like (mostly due to the amazing looks now available on cloaks), check out the EQ2 Guild Cloak Designer tool.

NO TRADE/HEIRLOOM Drops Tradeable Among Participants for 48 Hours

NO TRADE and HEIRLOOM items that drop from a chest will now remain tradable for 48 hours with any character who was present in the group when the mob/encounter was killed.  As soon as you attune or adorn the item, this provision drops. This should certainly cut down on Customer Service Petitions. This is NOT a change to being able to sell loot rights, nor does it make items any more tradeable to people who weren’t present than the current setup.

After the jump, seven more features we’re getting on Tuesday.

Destiny of Velious Yellow Adornments by Slot

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

This is PART TWO of our guide to Destiny of Velious adornments and covers Yellow or “Heroic” adornments designated for Grouping SORTED BY SLOT.

Yellow (Group) Adornments are LEGENDARY, either level 80 or 90, and cost 5 Primal Velium Shards and 5 plat and 4 gold. Yellow Adornments are available for 11 slots:

There are solo, repeatable, and dungeon-based quests to earn faction with the Othmir, Snowfang Gnolls, Ry’Gorr, and Thurgadin.

UPDATE: This information was updated on March 8, 2011. Changes from Beta to live are reflected, as well as adding the Legs slot.

Destiny of Velious Yellow Adornments by Faction

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

This is PART ONE of our guide to Destiny of Velious adornments and covers Yellow or “Heroic” adornments designated for Grouping SORTED BY FACTION.

There are four major factions offering Adornments, Armor, Jewelry, Weapons, and House Items in Destiny of Velious:

There are solo, repeatable, and dungeon-based quests to earn faction with the Othmir, Snowfang Gnolls, Ry’Gorr, and Thurgadin. Yellow Adornments are LEGENDARY, level 80 or 90, and cost 5 Primal Velium Shards and 5 plat and 4 gold.

UPDATE: This information was updated on March 8, 2011. Changes from Beta to live are reflected.

Destiny of Velious Preview: Public Quests

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

Destiny of Velious introduces Public Quests. These are interactive battles between NPCs that players can join in and receive a variety of rewards. Drawing inspiration from Warhammer (and possibly Rift, although we don’t know the creative timeline here), these are the opposite of Contested content because everyone who participates receives a reward. If your gear is really limited, then you can even click on NPCs and coordinate fighting with them and use their abilities instead. All those present and participating in the battle gain access to a Loot Chest which can contain a piece of armor commeasurate with the level of the encounter when it was completed, as well as other items including:

  • Velium shard — An item that can be turned in for faction
  • Potions that instantly grant AA XP
  • Relics that you can sacrifice to your Deity
  • Trinkets that you can Transmute

At the end of each battle, players will also see green shinies which can be harvested for rewards.

There are two Public Quests going live with Destiny of Velious:

  • The Battle of Storm Gorge: The Coldain dwarves need your help fending off the attacks of the Order of Rime
  • The Battle of Thurgadin (Echoes of the Ring War): The kromrif army and the defenders of Thurgadin have been slain but their ghosts remain locked in battle. This is the site of the Ring War from EQ1 and also where the 10th War Ring Heritage Quest starts.

When you wander into the active area, you will be automatically offered a quest in your Quest Journal which does not count towards your quest total. The quest will show a timer of when the next Public Quest is going to begin and you can stick around (or go do other things and then come back at the appropriate time) and then jump into the battle.

GU59: In-Game Calendar and Ready Check!

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

In-Game Calendar

If you have longed to be able to organize Guild Events into an in-game Calendar, post a Raid Schedule, or get a reminder on which City will be visited next by the roving City Festival, you’ll be pleased to see the addition of a Calendar in Game Update 59. The calendar will be populated with Live Events, possibly Server Events posted by Community Managers, and also your Guild leadership will have the ability to add events (it’s gained a new permission under Guild Ranks).

Ready Check!

From the Update Notes:

Raid Leaders can now initiate a ready-check by right-clicking the raid window. Raid members in the current zone will be asked if they are ready and the results will be displayed in the raid window as well as in raid chat.

This will be a great addition for Raid Leaders to be able to make sure everyone is back from AFK, and probably also a good way to find out who’s watching TV (or worse) rather than paying attention. 😉

NOTE: This is a PREVIEW. Additional features and tweaks may occur to render these screenshots outdated.

GU59: Mechanics / Itemization Changes

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

Big changes to Mechanics and Itemization have coincided with the last 2 expansions and Destiny of Velious is no exception. Today we delve into changes to:

  • Procs (Item Effects)
  • Adornments
  • Critical Chance
  • Critical Avoidance
  • Primary Stats (Stamina, Intelligence, Agility, Wisdom, and Strength)
  • Health
  • Power
  • Melee Range
  • Multiattack
  • Ability Mod


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