Feldon Welcome to the EverQuest II: Systems panel from SOE Live 2013. Panelists are Michael “Xelgad” Ganz, Brian “Omougi” Ferguson, and Kyle “Kander” Vallée.
Disclaimer: All things discussed about the expansion are subject to change!
Itemization will be discussed in our next systems panel: EverQuest II: Itemization Evolves.
More slides after the jump…
Buy Heroic Endlines
- 2nd line costs 20 points
- 3rd line costs 30 points
- Doesn’t require expansion
- Will be getting some rebalancing and reworking
New Dragon AA tree. Different dragon based on your archetype (this is just flavor):
- Woushi – fighter
- Yelenak – priest
- Dozekar – scouts
- Trakanon – mages
- Total of 50 points in new tree.
- looks like KoS tree but without top entry bubble.
- Lines vary based on Archetype, for instance Mages get 1 Survivability, 1 Solo, and 2 Damage lines.
At long last, Dungeon Finder is being rebuilt!
- Updated UI will show you your place in the queue.
- Rewards for using Dungeon Finder — bonus currency, plat, loot crates for using the system
- Internal calculator for determining the correct level of gear to survive the dungeon
- Matchmaker will only build functional groups with tank, healer, support, DPS, and 2 other slots.
- Matchmaker will try to grab a Troubador if you have a mage group, Dirge if you have scout group. It won’t hold up a group for these, but it will try to build the best possible group. Very smart.
Tired of relying on the computer’s matchmaker to build a group? Build your own based on everyone who is currently LFG!
- Group Builder is an Advanced Mode for Dungeon Finder.
- Allows group leaders to customize the allowed classes. Can specify only specific tank classes for specific zones, or certain classes for specific zones.
PvP (Omougi)
- Wards balanced vs. Reactives vs Heals over Time
- Noticeable increase to health. Increases to Autoattack damage to prevent interminable fights.
- Entry level gear should be rewarded pretty quick, and then later goals shouldn’t require weeks (months?) of token grinding.
Awesome consumables. Emerald Halls type stuff. Lots of consumables. Recipes that use heroic and raid drops, as well as other places.
Dissonance is the equivalent of Savagery.
- Has a Construct (golem) pet that can intercept damage. Not fully a pet class.
- The Construct reduces damage of groupmates, which can be parsed.
- Construct’s health is based on Channeler’s stats.
- He can’t die, he just stops absorbing damage at 25%, gets worse at absorbing damage as his health drops. Construct cannot be attacked by mobs, can be in PvP. Cannot be healed by normal meals. Only the Channeler can heal the construct.
- Construct has 6 appearance slots, 4 ability slots.
- Channelers can go out in the world and pick up appearances.
- Construct doesn’t need to be skilled up like Beastlord Warders.
Conduit Bar has 10 slots. All your main construct Repair abilities can go in the first 2 slots. Slot 3 is reserved for emergency heal. Slot 4 is a debuff. Slots 5-10 are wildcards and can take anything not a Repair, Emergency Heal, or Debuff. Cannot change Conduit bar in combat.
The Dungeon Finder will probably fail again. Those improvements are nice, and kinf of what I expected, but they’re all based on the assumption that enough people will use it.
So the basic problem is not solved: why do people not want to use it?
I think the main issue is that the game is highly social. Taking away group creation initiative from players doesn’t lead to the experience that people are looking for. Some social interactions can’t be automated. You get groups with players that have no commitment, and no cohesion.
Plus many times I put a group together, people told me they can log an alt, or get a guildie, etc. Something the Dungeon Finder doesn’t solve either.
Imho what we need is kind of a chat subsystem that makes the process of announcing a group, and inviting people, easier. Keep group creation in the hand of players. Create a group, and it would post it in a new chat channel that people can choose to tick on or off. People then just click a link in those messaegs and apply to group. Let group leader tick which applications they want. This also lets people chose to avoid whomever they don’t want to play with. Add a chat window in there just like the “lobby” in most FPS.
The Dungeon Finder problem is not isolated to EQ2, it is just as unpopular in LotRO. That’s why I’m pretty sure it won’t work.
Oh wait Group Builder? That might be interesting…
Thing is, it’s so darn easy to start a group in chat window compared to tick a bunch of checkboxes and dropdowns… it’s hard to beat. I would be surprised if people even bother with the group builder.. at the end of the day you have so much freedom with the chat system that the dungeon builder or group builder becomes more of an hassle than anything else.
Even if we had a new official “lfg” channel, so we could untick Level1-9, and use it instead to start groups, chances are a lot of people will keep using Level1-9.
It’s a tough nut to crack, but I remain convinced it’s not just people’s unwillingness to “pug”. I think there’s the 20% of people who start groups, and then the 80% who just go lfg and are more or less passive about it. What I want, is something that helps me, in the 20%, to initiate a group and make less of a hassle to handle the tells and invite people.
I gave up on being in the 20% long ago. Huge hassle most of the time,and you nearly always seem to get “that guy”. The tank wearing cloth,who can’t position, the healer who is determined to top the parse above all else, the scout that sees “incoming” as a cue to launch 1000 arrows, or the mage that goes afk,and comes back just in time to loot the named.
In fact the only unpleasant people I’ve come across typically are very impatient or don’t tolerate any error from fellow group members (like the a-hole who calls other “retards” and ragequits because some effect wasn’t cured asap at the end of a fight). Basically I have a theory now that those “really bad” people in PUGs are in fact a circlejerk group of intolerant players who are pointing at each other. After some time all these impatient people drive themselves off participating in PUGs so thankfully the rest of us who enjoy grouping up have a really good time!
I am on Freeport and I have only had average to good, to sometimes great experiences in PUGs. Recently I remember even being in a PUG with two dirges or two healers, I didn’t want to turn one away. Our DPS was a bit slow so what? They were all playing well. And I got to see some of the curses/strats on nameds that used to die in ten seconds :p
Plus there is no such thing as playing with strangers. I find that I often bump in the same people when I joing groups started in chat. You’re bound to recognise people when you play at regular times. It’s just plainly logical. The user base is not that huge on any given server at any one time. And sometimes I think I don’t know the people in my group and someone is like “do,’t you remember me? I was the mage in DC today! this is my alt!”
So yeah…
The Group Builder/Dungeon Finder works better when group content is more rewarding/interesting to do!
Bonus rewards from grouping is not enough if the actually zone is not rewarding. This is an important ingredient.
I am not understanding the AA points and how they are going to be spent.
So we can get all 3 Heroic Tree Endlines with spending 30 points … where?
Next we are getting 20 more points to be able to spend and the Dragon Theme Tree we can spend 50 points in. this is not adding up completely. or are we going to have to not spend all points in the other trees?
With the Dragon Theme Tree all of the same Arch type will have the same options? like All Fighters will have the same AA options in this tree?
I didn’t quite get that either…
You will have 340 total points shared between class, subclass, shadows, heroic, and dragon. As for the bonus heroic endlines, I’m pretty sure the second endline will just cost a bulk 20 points to get, 3rd 30 points. Each archetype shares dragon AA’s, a Berserker’s Yelinak tree is the exact same as a Monk’s Yelinak tree, etc. Mage’s Trakanon tree has one or two bubbles that changes depending on damage type, illy/coe get arcane, wiz/conj get elemental, lock/necro get noxious.
I already set up my new 340 spec for brigand, ended up being 90 rogue, 82 brigand, 48 shadows, 70 heroic, 50 dragon
If you want more than 30 points in Dragon aa’s or if you want a 2nd endline you’re going to have to take points away from what you already have allocated.
You can have 50 in Dragon aa’s and you can now choose a 2nd heroic endline for 20 points or a third one for 30 points…but you only have 30 new points total to spend.
I think you have to choose what you want, to sacrifice all or part of a tree to take extra ones in another that previously would have been unavailable.
With the ability to swap AA builds anywhere in game now this should work fine.
So… Dungeon Finder 2.0 still won’t be cross-server?
Destined to fail.
Why they keep wasting time and money on things that almost noone wants? I’m sure dungeon finder will fail.
DF 2 will only work if it’s cross server
I think that’s BS.
I agree with needing cross server capability simply because population is ever dwindling on some servers.
I’m staunchly adamant against Cross-Server Dungeon Finder. Why? Because if I’m a mage, and a super awesome Tank Breastplate of +400 Tankyness drops….what’s to keep me from rolling Need and quite possibly stealing it? It’s not like you can Name & Shame me in 1-9 for being a dick….because I’m on a different server than you. So I don’t care what your server thinks of me. Same server though, you gain a reputation for that crap.
Hi,
I’ve been looking through everything i can find about SOE Live, Kadner promised there would be information regarding the avatar spawn timers/windows/whatever being messed with.
Can anyone that was there confirm this was actually discussed? I assumed it would be in the mechanics panel, but don’t see anything about it above.
Thanks.
Q- Can I betray my existinting priest for a channeler
A Channeler’s main class is Shaper.
Betrayal only allows you to switch between the two subclasses of a class, like a Druid can betray from Warden to Fury.