Feldon After posting a promising thread on Friday entitled “Upcoming Itemization Changes (No Nerfs)“, it seems SmokeJumper has gotten egg on his face today. Players logged in after today’s Tuesday Game Update to find sweeping nerfs and huge reductions in the effectiveness of Velious gear across the line, especially Fighter items.
In a cantankerous discussion on the EQ2 forums, players linked numerous items which underwent substantial losses in stats and desirability. SmokeJumper initially tried to defend the changes with:
Please go back and take a look at my original post. I did say that we were being “intentionally conservative” with these changes and that this we’re likely to do a second pass after judging the impact of the first changes. Hang in there.
When cornered about why today’s update included all nerfs and no buffs:
I’m the wrong guy to try to answer your questions, but I’ve forwarded this thread to those in charge of itemization and they’ll write a response soon. There weren’t supposed to be nerfs, so I’m trying to find out why that occurred.
The full explanation, and our commentary about EQ2 Itemization after the jump…
SmokeJumper eventually came back with some explanations:
Okay, it looks like some stuff didn’t get all the way through QA that I thought was ready. Communication glitch inside the team, but I’ll take the blame on this one.
The changes I thought were coming out today did not get done and I’m getting the final ETA right now.
Stay tuned.
and later:
It turns out that there’s a part 2 to this update. There wasn’t *supposed* to be a part two, but some stuff got held up by QA (so they could test it more carefully) and we pushed what was ready…which was a mistake.
We’re fixing part 2 and will have it out soon. Thursday is the target date for an early morning hotfix.
The following are the things that were *not* fixed, but will be fixed on Thursday:
• Dungeon dropped loot has had its power increased
• Dungeon shard armor has had its power increased
• Raid items have had their power increased
• The gap in power between easy and hard mode raid items has been increased
When queried about Quality Assurance (QA)’s involvement:
My reference to QA was because they are actually *doing* their job by holding back content that isn’t fully tested. The SNAFU came about because we pushed the hotfix anyway without all the stuff that was held back. That shouldn’t have happened.
It was absolutely proper for QA to hold the items back as untested.
Uwopo asked:
Why did part 1 of the great “Upcoming itemization changes (not nerfs!)” patch start with a bunch of nerfs?
SmokeJumper further explained:
The answer is…really bad timing. Those nerfs were supposed to have been done in the last update when we rebalanced the other items. They didn’t get done in time so they came out today.
And the things we intended to come out today don’t come out until Thursday.
So, after further analysis, this wasn’t even “part 1” as I thought ealier. The intended update for today just simply didn’t happen at all, but will go Live on Thursday.
There will be no further nerfs.
If you’d like to participate in the witchhunt critique of today’s itemization changes, look no further than the EQ2 Forums.
EQ2Wire Commentary
For the last few years, my impression has been that we keep “starting from scratch” on Itemization. A dev is brought on and is instantly expected to know all 24 classes, how their AAs interact with their gear, know what gear is needed for certain spells and abilities, and know how changes targeting level 90 players may have ramifications for level 1-89 players.
Itemization, more than perhaps any other discipline in MMO design except Class Balance depends upon Institutional Memory. Past developers have been demonized for their work on past expansions, but who better on the EQ2 team to guide how itemization is managed with the current class setups, AA lines, etc. than someone who went to the school of hard knocks?
At one time, it was exciting to see new items being linked in chat. Shard of Hate items may have been considered somewhat unbalancing, but the unique effects on those items captivated players. Items were sufficiently interesting that we wanted to know where they dropped, how they affected our class, etc. Sites like LootDB sprung up to track these unique items, their percentage drop rates, and where they could be acquired.
Now, it seems to be just a few stats like crit chance, crit bonus, main stat (str/int/wis/agi), stamina (really just health mod), increment 1-3% for each dungeon or raid attended, like odometers for our characters reflecting the passage of time.
Entire subclasses of gameplay, such as melee druids and battle clerics, have been homogenized in favor of the four main archetypes of fighter, priest, scout, and mage. EQ2’s strength — depth of gameplay — seems to be giving way to simplification.
Has Itemization become a training exercise? Something that *has* to be done, rather than seen as something of an artform? Shouldn’t Itemization be a prestigious position that takes 2 years of experience to get into, instead of something to bide one’s time until a Senior Designer position opens up?
Silius must surely have whiplash at how fast the player community can turn on a developer. But he can take heart that he’s hardly in an exclusive club and next week, someone else will be the target of the community’s vitriole. I put the blame where it belongs: whoever thought itemization was busywork or just a career stepping stone instead of a crucial part of what makes an MMO tick. If Silius has put his heart and soul into this, which I have no reason to believe he hasn’t, there’s still the experience of 24 classes interacting in dungeons and raids which takes time to learn.
Itemization is literally the Reward Center of the MMO brain. It can’t just be a necessary evil.
People are going to be calling him George Bush Sr. everytime he nerfs something now.
He got rolled by the 92nd Congress. It would be like him making a deal with management to do something if he did something as well and then they backed out of the deal and made him look like an idiot. Basically…being a bunch of dishonest jack wagons that they really are.
With every patch that goes by I tend to see 1 thing become more clear. Smokejumper has no idea what the heck is going on both in his own offices and in game. I have seen 7 friends leave the game since DoV due to the extremely poor management being done.
looks like they reintroduced the bug preventing white adornments being applied to DoV bows too.
They just. Don’t. Care.
As a swashbuckler main I’m still waiting on a scout usable throwing weapon (though my only class based combat art is no longer hotbarred due to bow weapons’ longtime damage superiority).
Sadly its the same flamewar every expansion/item update. Would be nice if there were another round of adjustments to take the item requirements off the spells that still have unjustified requirements, or at the least allow satchels/quivers to carry bow and thrown ammo.
I agree with the basics, loot should be matched to difficulty of the encounter (or organisation there-of) and not simply if it was a raid-mob.
Annnnd this was the final nail in the coffin for EQ2 for me.
Loved the game..hate SOE, cancelled today along with several of my guildies.
I would say ill miss you Unrest Server, but youre a load of crap and deserve nothing but pain and misery! The people are cool tho 🙂
Ill be trollin your riftwire board now 🙂
people ask for dungeon be more rewarding (better gear than PQ or Solo guk), and quicker (1h instead of 2).
patch dont change any item previous kael in the good way, and just lowered the critical bonus of mobs ?
Mobs dont hit that hard, even in iceshard or throne they are very manageable. Just few special ability that hit bit too hard (way more hard than the mob hitself) This reduce crit bonus was not need. I have 2 toon already able to solo lot of the trash in those dungeon, and they dont have raid gear…
What it was need is remove few trash and lowered a bit HP of FEW name (not all)
Allow dungeon drop even from Tower of frozen shadow to be an upgrade to PQ gear, that no want say this stuff have to be better in everyway !
You’re right on the money — itemization has largely become a linear grind. One item for my bruiser might have +multiattack and another might have +crit bonus but, really, it’s just +50 STR, +60 STR, etc.
Ascent is a success zone, not hundred trash between name. Most are packed so they are quick fight.
I wish all other zone was more like ascent.
Exemple : ToFS SC first floor, lot of trash and one semi boss… bit too much mobs. Epic version only have the boss ! Perhaps remove bat and spectre or something…
Fortress spire : first room, pack of mob and solo mob… same couple of mob could be removed without doubt. Dock same, one or two trash could easily be removed.
I’ve barely spent any time in instances in DoV. Considering most have been taking on the order or 2-3 hours to complete with most groups I’ve had, it’s close to killed the Velious experience for me. Add to that the demonstrated incompetence of the itemization crew and I’m right on the edge with this game.
And I’ve loved this game for years. That’s just sad, guys.
Let me take you back to 2009 for a moment. At the time, poison damage was based on Spell Damage. Assassins even had an AA choice that was specific to either Assassins or Predators (can’t remember which) that gave a bonus to Spell Damage. The description of the AA specifically stated that this would improve the damage of poisons. Also, INT would increase the damage of spells which also improved the damage of poisons. This was also stated clearly in the description of what the INT bonus in the AA tree would do for scouts. Any scout that used poisons that was any good at all knew this was how the game worked. This wasn’t some side effect learned by pouring through log files, it was clearly stated by in game descriptions of how AAs and stats worked.
Then Ward of Elements came out. The hybrid scout armor had a bonus to spell damage. Assassins saw this and realized that having a bonus to melee damage AND a bonus to spell damage is better than just a bonus to melee damage so they use the hybrid scout armor and increase their DPS. This came as a surprise to the “Item Dev” at the time:
WHAT? The item dev didn’t know that poisons were based on spell damage??? That means he had no idea that INT was a desirable stat for poison using scouts either. This wasn’t some obscure secret knowledge, this was basic information you needed at the time to find out what stats you should work on for several of the classes in the game. And this was knowledge that the “Item Dev” was lacking!
Let me answer your question Feldon:
Absofrackingloutly!