Feldon Game Update 100 “The Scourged Wastes” has been under invite-only beta for the last three weeks and tonight it will hit the Test server to allow for a bit of public testing prior to its April 28th launch. Bugs should be reported on the EverQuest II Bug Tracker. The full Test Update Notes can be read here, but we’re going to cherry pick a few interesting points…
This update is heading to test later tonight, ETA ~10pm PST.
GENERAL
- GU 100 is now available on Test server. Level 100 players should expect to receive an in game mail directing them further.
- Removed the embedded Legends of Norrath (LoN) client from the EverQuest II client. If you wish to continue playing LoN, please download and use the standalone client available at www.legendsofnorrath.com.
- Characters on Thurgadin have been granted legacy server titles.
- Fixed a bug where it would take a long time for your Daybreak Cash balance to show in the marketplace window.
- Fixed a bug where players could lock other players out of Kralet Penumbra.
SYSTEMS
- Encounters and player characters now have a new contested stat called resolve. PC’s who have less resolve than their NPC targets will deal less damage and receive more damage equal to 1% for every point that their resolve is below their opponents resolve.
- Example 1: Playerbob has 150 resolve while his target NPCGnoll has 200 resolve. Playerbob will deal 50% less damage against NPCGnoll and NPCGnoll will deal 50% more damage to Playerbob.
- Example 2: Playerbob has 150 resolve while his target NPCOrc has 100 resolve. Player bob will deal normal damage and NPCOrc will not deal any extra damage to Playerbob.
HEARTBOUND
- Characters may Heartbond to their one and only via a Heartstone.
ABILITIES
- All classes now have a raidwide resolve buff.
ITEMS
- Resolve has been added to all Terrors of Thalumbra gear.
- Experience Vials are now available in the Marketplace. Once purchased, experience vials may be enabled from the UI to convert your earned used experience points
ZONES / ZONE PROGRESSION
- The GU 100 zones The Fabled Temple of Cazic-Thule, including The Fabled Sanctum of Fear, and The Fabled Ruins of Varsoon along with The Fabled Chamber of Immortality, accessible via a portal on the docks in the Thundering Steppes for subscribers.
Commentary
So first up, Legends of Norrath is being spun out of the EverQuest II game client. There are also plans (although no date has been given) to make all the rare LoN loot cards available directly from the EQ2 Marketplace. One wonders how long Legends of Norrath has left.
A new stat called Resolve has been added to the game. This seems to be a return to the idea of Critical Mitigation / Critical Avoidance. I never had a problem with either of these stats, as long as they were properly tuned. Crit Mit was grossly overtuned throughout the release of Drunder and was allowed to fester for almost a year before the stat was unceremoniously ripped out of the game.
MMORPGs will always need “You must be this tall” stats to keep content relevant, but they have to be adjusted quickly if they get out of whack. We’ll see what happens with Resolve. The stat is available as a raidwide buff for all classes and is being retroactively added to Terrors of Thalumbra gear. Hopefully it is available in Census (for inclusion in EQ2U) on day one.
This update adds Heartbound which is sort of like an in-game marriage between players. When both players are logged in, they receive a special buff. The ceremony is performed in the Shard of Love zone.
Game Update 100 has many bugfixes and tweaks, including longstanding bugs with Quests, Items, Shiny spawning, the dragon Delahnus the Dauntless not spawning in Vestigal Cella for a required Epic Repercussions quest step if the queen is killed too quickly, and so forth. The complete GU100 Test Update Notes can be read on the EQ2 Forums.
WTF?? I guess they needed some new way to block content until you got enough content loot. No more critical mitigation, no more massively high resists. Now we have RESOLVE! A brand new number to chase.
Just one question. Where do we see the resolve value for NPCOrc? The scout spell? Or do we just get to guess and get amazingly frustrated when we get our asses kicked and can’t figure out what the magic number is?
This. And does this mean that stuff we can currently kill with relative ease may suddenly kick our behinds & we’ll have to re-gear?
Only creatures heroic and above in GU100 and going forward will have resolve. The gear from ToT has been given ample amounts of resolve to cover most resolve requirements in GU100 save for some end game stuff in the raid maybe which you may need to acquire a few items for. Creatures in ToT do not have resolve so there is no requirement for stuff you are already killing.
You can check an enemy’s resolve stat with the scout stat check ability.
Thank you for the clear and concise explanation. I have never cared for these kinds of mechanics, but at least you’re not being vague about it like folks have been in the past. We’ll make do, just like we have before. At least we now better know what to expect.
The goal with Resolve is not to be a gating mechanics with this update. We are putting it in so players understand it and are used to it. Expansion 13 will be another story.
So it will be a gating mechanism in the next expansion…great.
Instead of adding new stats could you please do some serious stat and AA consolidation with the next expansion? It has gotten massively out of hand and just drives returning players away from the game.
Having to figure out stat caps and reforge everything is just really poor design, and the capping of crit bonus and weapon damage bonus has just added to this. The caps should just be not achievable with any available gear set so that upgrades are obvious.
As for AAs, there are so many redundant / mandatory ones that its barely even a choice anymore. What is the point of them? Certainly not diversity like they used to offer. Now the only real choice is what Prestige choices you will make.
Sorry for the rant, but I just think you would be better off removing stats, rather than adding new ones.
meh… corruption, prismatic, chromatic, etc… now resolve… I wish the developers would find a more creative solution to gating/metering content. I almost prefer the old original EQ keying mechanics (sol, pop, etc) to this kind of macguffin.
Yeah I can’t think of a single game where this type of stat has been implemented well, or has survived the backlash.
I think the game would be better served if they concentrated on content, more stories, more quest lines that are interesting, things like this. I find this constant remove this mechanism, add in these new mechanisms, deal with the problems of removing and adding mechanisms, annoying rather than game enhancing.
I have to agree. They keep adding new mechanics on top of old mechanics. Removing old mechanics that have worked just fine and replacing them with new cumbersome things.
It’s getting old, that’s for sure.
Definitely with you on the content, stories and storylines but sadly most folks in game are way too focused on the magic ‘dps’ number. The greater reward is in the journey not how quickly you can slap a critter down.
Whatever happened to the days of walking in, getting splatted, then finding out it was out of your league, and feeling dumb? XD It honestly added to the realism of the game. =P
What happens to the loot still in LoN that we haven’t claimed? Claim it all before the 18th or it poofs?
Legends of Norrath is not going away. But you’ll need to download the Legends of Norrath client to play it.
Thanks Feldon. Will we still be able to claim loot for EQ2 though? So the only thing that is changing is the loss of the embedded client?
What’s God awful is we have to download the client to get our 5 free cards, since you have to log into LON at least once a month to get the 5 free ones . . . and we can’t access through EQ2 anymore.
It just keeps getting better and better doesn’t it? Just mind boggling……
It’s coming up on two years since the last ‘deck’ came out for LoN. It’s probably safe to assume the game is on life support at this point.
Resolve won’t work as expected for 4 updates and then it will just be something that prevents most players from getting into anything decent. Go Dev Team.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! 🙄
Critical Mitigation and Critical Avoidance were removed because the team did not like these type of mechanics. Not this type…
So how is Resolve not just an overall multiplier of gear stats? It would seem to me that Resolve will become the single most important stat of all until you meet the minimum Resolve for that encounter.
This sound about right?
Damage dealt multiplier = 1+(R-Rt)/100 (floor = 0, ceiling = 1)
Damage Received multiplier = 1+(Rt-R)/100 (floor=1, no ceiling)
Where RT = target Resolve, R = current resolve
Sure smells like a gating mechanic to me, even if it’s not the intent.
Lotro tried this with radiant get back when max level was 60. I was hated and despised and was a gate to raiding at the time. Many month of teeth grinding in the forums and an all out war between the devs and the play base. Now we get the same mechanic here. I get that they say it will not be used as a gating mechanic, but right there he already pointed out, heroic and above. This dividing out the raiding players vs the casual players, and adding an extra layer of gating. Not good.
It just blows my mind that the developers continue to think that gating mechanics equals good game play. So many people on the forums time and again have expressed their displeasure with the direction this game has been going in and therefore, the developers and others can’t say they haven’t had adequate feedback on this issue and many others. I think moving forward we can expect more of the same lack of quality and quantity.
Xalmat,
Thanks for expressing what I am feeling about this.
Resolve is the only way they can keep people from blowing through content in the first couple months of an expansion. Mob difficulty was EQ2’s gating mechanic for a long time, however if you recruited a new player that didnt have raid gear, it didnt prevent you from doing the harder content as the rest of the raid could carry them. But in recent expansions with stat inflation and a smaller development team, they are limited to how many zones they can push out. This is the reason we see reused zones for Advance Solo / Heroic and Raid. This is also why a vast majority of the population are all killing the same mobs. So, to prevent an expansion from being cleared in a matter of a couple months, put in a mechanic that requires you to farm the same zone over and over and over again. This way you are held back by an RNG that sucks and you are forced to NOT progress because of lack of the right gear dropping.
I know this is a ” The sky is falling ” post and we wont know until it happens but this is how I see it. Put a mechanic in game that limits progression to RNG and time invested.
Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with a gating mechanic like Crit Mit, Crit Avoidance or now Resolve. They all do ultimately the same thing, which is require a certain amount of re-gearing before attempting new content. Without them, the gating mechanic becomes the massive gear inflation we have now.
The key is that when a new gating mechanic is introduced without a level cap increase, the appropriate stat needs to be added in sufficient values on existing gear.
The gear inflation since gating mechanics were removed is pointless.
I’ll give you that. If Resolve is a way to curb stat inflation in expansions without level cap increases, and it’s implemented CORRECTLY, it won’t be too bad. But it would need to be done correctly, which is the key part.
How about fixing the crash on zone problem before adding more stats?
Amen!
What are the loots like in GU100? How much better (if any) are the new GU100 AS gears comparing to ToT AS gears? or heroic GU100 gears comparing to ToT?