Feldon It seems that the laundry list of bugs which arrived with the untested Poet’s Palace Dungeon Maker layout has gotten some attention. Brasse made this post on the EQ2 Forums:
First off, thank you for all the detailed /bug reports, and Cyliena’s excellent summary. These have been invaluable for our Dev Team, and the epitome of constructive feedback. Simply telling us we suck, on the other hand, is not particularly helpful. =P
Sorry for not posting earlier, but the EQII Devs have been actively looking into these issues since Piestro and I got into office this morning, diligently examining the issues. As you know, EQII does regular hotfixes, so stay tuned and we’ll let you know as soon as we have an update!
Dungeoneers: I would suggest that you continue to decorate and populate dungeons while we work on this internally, and then add the effects and double check dialog when able. Everyone is on the same playing field here, so there is nothing to be lost in proceeding! I know how much time it takes to build these amazing playgrounds (hence my second dungeon going on three months under construction now, hehe), so don’t waste any time!
For those of you who have already submitted entries, remember that you can go back and make changes right up until the challenge ends!
Again, thank you for all your help.
The deadline for the Poet’s Palace Dungeon Maker contest has been extended by two days to compensate for the issues. From Brasse again:
UPDATE: Lyndro and the EQII Team got some fixes in time for this week’s update and they are working on the rest. Read more here: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/…topic_id=518774
The challenge deadline is 11:59pm PDT JUNE 10th.
Thank you all for your excellent feedback and support!
Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, EQ2 Lead Designer, also stepped in with this reply:
Hey folks, sorry about the Poet’s bugs. We got all the ones listed above, along with a few others, resolved. They weren’t wrapped up in time for the hotfix, but they should be in for the next.
However his subsequent response is disconcerting. During the Age of Discovery beta, I and others put together a concise, unambiguous non-whiny list of ‘must have’ features that Dungeon Maker will need in order to rise above the level of ‘housing with mobs’. Yet, Lyndro’s response would suggest that this list has somehow been lost in the shuffle since Rothgar‘s promotion to EQNext Lead Programmer.
We are hoping this is a misinterpretation and that those promises following the December release of Age of Discovery that we would see a steady stream of improvements to Dungeon Maker will yet come to pass.
The suggestion to let you tune individual monsters is an interesting one, it would require pretty large changes to some of the root systems of dungeon maker, and changes like that would break all of the existing published dungeons. There are lots of reasons why decisions like that get made initially, some of them are technical, some of them are touchy-feely “game design” decisions.
In other news, the rewards for completing the sprawling Underdepths group dungeon introduced with Gu63: Skyshrine will soon at least equal, if not surpass the quality of items that drop inside the zone, or in earlier, easier instances. From Kander:
The upgraded quest rewards should go in on June 5th or 6th.
With this week’s adjustment to the Skyshrine solo/duo/molo instances to allow them to be completed every 90 minutes instead of every 24 hours, there were two things that had to change. The zone lockout timers, and the quest ‘mission’ minimum repeatable timers. In a not unpredictable oversight, the mission timers were not shortened to match. Fortunately, Fyreflyte is on the case:
Our intent is for you to be able to run one of the missions every 90 minutes. The mission system does not function in a completely intuitive fashion, however, and is locking players out for a longer period than it should. I’m making a change that will correct this issue in the next hotfix.
I’m betting that the ‘upgraded’ rewards for underdepths will remain an insult and still be eclispsed by the loot from the regular group and solo instances. I also have doubts that it will happen by the 5th or 6th.
We get sick of seeing items drop from Underdepths that are worse than the quest rewards from the questline that gets you access to Underdepths.
(Side note: At one point I thought about getting some post-it notes made up that said “Itemization Matters” and sending them to the EQ2 team. The thought being that if they got a box of free post-it notes, maybe somebody would use them and if they used them, maybe, subliminally, it would begin to sink in. But they ended up costing more than I was willing to spend on them. I wonder if a kickstarter campaign to fund them would work. lol )
The issue is the quest reward was itemized way too high, like way WAY too high. The right solution was to nerf the quest item and raise the raid item.
The quest item is so good, there isn’t alot of room to make the raid one significantly better.
To me though, the issue is what is missing. HM drunder raids remain harder than Skyshrine but itemized well below it.
Please give us more to do with appropriate rewards. Skyshrine isn’t all the fascinating. Atan, you are correct, it is what’s missing.
I’m a bit confused here, what rewards are we talking about? The items that DROP hile doing Underdepths herooic dungeon or the faction items purchased with Dozekar’s head? I don’t recall any actual rewards from doing the questline in Underdepths (I might be wrong here). If we’re talking about the Fabled Shoulders/Ranged/Boot items, those come from the Access quest line to get INTO the UD, not from the zone itself.
I *DO* think the quality of the drops from UD need to be upgraded as do the items you can buy with Dozekar’s head (and then subequently, the raid rewards). Currently I would not give up my Fabled questline shoulders nor boots for the faction versions bought with Dozekar’s head.
Bring Back Class Uniqueness to EQ2 in 2012!
How about lowering the dps check on Dozekar so utility classes actually get a chance to complete Underdepths?
It sucks having a Troubador/Illusionist as my mains and always getting passed over for Tier1 DPS because of the lame fight mechanics.
Even pisspoor dps can do underdepths i’ve run it numerous times on my temp in some extremely bad groups and finished it.
Halz … a Troub should always be welcome for the Dozekar fight. The troub stays close to the group for their buffs to hit the group while you tank the dragon as the golem the whole fight. At least, that’s the way I’ve done it, EVERY time.
Seems to me if you have finished the SS quest line to be able to run UD, then the gear drops should help your dps so it should be decent enough to go in a group for it? Maybe you are just getting in with the wrong pugs or something.
I think the biggest problem with the Doze fight is the 1shots from the adds coming in. We typically breeze through all of UD with no problems but always seem to get hung up on Doze. The fight IS doable, but far from “fun” .
People usually want a bard or chanter for buffs during the Dozekar fight. I have a troubador and have gotten at least two heads running pugs. You just usually get to be the one in the suit. ; )
i agree with atan.
eq2’s focus on balancing itemization within gu63 is wrong. yes ez heroic questlines shouldnt have better loot than x4 instance drops. but this isnt the right question. the right question is balancing all ‘relevent’ content. soe decided drunder, gu63, and pow are all still relevent. but they mixed up progression timeline by putting challenge and rewards in different orders. challenge:gu63, hm drunder, pow. rewards: hm drunder, gu63, pow. challenge must match reward. thats basic game design. breaking game design commandments is not optimal. im not seeing any justification or even any reason to break it. why do it?
gu63 is a microcosm of the game, not the whole thing. balance between drunder and gu63 is a higher level balance issue than the heroic reward, and it has a serious impact on progression.
ive been trying to figure out why gu63 loot sells for more than PoW loot. imo its because PoW loot is considered content from an imaginary place from mobs that are way too hard even for average players to consider killing in their wildest dreams.
average players can atleast hang in gu63 raid zones. the bridge to PoW is broken very badly. itemization issues with HM drunder and gu63 basically splits challenge and reward onto 2 different paths. i think when ppl see pow loot selling, they think of it like another game somehow got in their auction. like someone is auctioning world of warcraft loot in eq2s auction channel. its alien. will it even work if i equip it?
cant have both
1) all 3 relevent (hm drunder, gu63, pow)
2) amount of gu63 content only supplemental, not standalone with same zone lockouts
oh i should add a third on the end there
3) challenge and reward separated from each other