Feldon
A bit of a bombshell for some of you. Bruce Ferguson has stepped down as Senior Producer of EQ2 (his announcement): Just like any evolving game, things change. Since release, we’ve had an ongoing and heavy interest in game balance. Much of the critical implementation work in the last several years for EverQuest II has been on the shoulders of Aeralik, but the discussion and decisions are shared across the entire team, as we review information that you provide us in various ways. Data comes from the many reports we run against our log files, from the posts you...
Commentary
There have been concerns about having spells with a roman numeral and then spell qualities within a tier having roman numbers (App I, App IV, Adept I, Adept III, Master I, and Master II) as far as difficulties with Broker searching or confusion among new players who have to deal with a spell named, for instance Shadow Leap II (Apprentice II). Careful reading of Aeralik’s posts had led many people to believe that this spell renaming was just the first step in a bigger process. Naysayers, looks like you just got served. 😉 We got our hint on what...
As expected, the “Spell Naming Convention” thread is getting a lot of attention. Currently, Summoner (Conjuror / Necromancer) pets have distinctive names. I can see where folks are coming from when they say that having just one name for all of them would be a step backwards. Also, some of the spell names are pretty good through the tiers. If only the less imaginative spells were renamed that would make more sense. Finally, there have been folks suggesting either an Adjective system where all the spells have the same name, but a new adjective is added to the front...
I admit it. I can sometimes be pretty nostalgic. I grew up on Final Fantasy II for the SNES (which was actually Final Fantasy IV in Japan). I loved the game. The storyline, the gameplay. I was really excited when Final Fantasy III came out (actually Final Fantasy VI in Japan), and I made it about halfway through and then things came up in life. But I really enjoyed the Final Fantasy series. Years later, I bought a Playstation (the original) on the strength of Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Final Fantasy VII. I didn’t get very far...
It seems it is my duty after each Live Update to report those bugs which managed to slip through. It’s not a job I enjoy, but someone’s gotta do it. Here’s what to watch for: Warden Mythical/Epic proc is feeding power to the target instead of the Warden. Hire an extra illy or switch weapons until the hotfix. Druid AA “Tortoise Shell” AoE blocker spell is now broken as of LU51. No word on a fix. [discussion] The x4 Raid zone (Munzok’s) did not go live. No word as to why, only to expect an explanation later. Possibly because...
After the deafening silence of the last 3 weeks with regards to the Fighter Revamp and the state of GU51 in general, we’ve got a response on March 17 from none other than Bruce Ferguson, Producer of EQ2. Read it Here. The changes made with the initial release of the fighter revamp (on the Test server) need to be removed. However, rather than just roll back your characters to when we first introduced the changes on Test back in January; we’re going to need to split out the consolidated spells, which will reset them to Adept 1. For our...
Originally posted by Kirstie at EQ2 Forums: We have some exciting new features in the works for EQII! One of the first we’ll be talking about is Research Assistants. These hardworking researchers will help you acquire upgrades to your spells and combat arts while you’re off adventuring in the deepest darkest dungeon or asleep in your own warm cozy bed. Even though they’re hardworking, they’re not a speedy service and they are limited in how much they’ll help you. Because this kind of research is complicated, they’ll only be able to work on one spell or combat art for...
I saw the most terrifying quote today from the mechanics developer of EQ2, Aeralik. this is the first part of trying to get people back into their core roles so to speak. Tanks take the brunt of it now but we realize other classes are doing high damage when they shouldn’t be while some others don’t have the utility to match their role. Some may even pick up new roles down the line. So while we are currently tweaking the fighters we do have things in mind for the others albeit probably not as dramatic as the fighters( at...
You’ve probably heard a lot about the tanking changes which were put on hiatus. The cancelled Game Update #51 – Lucan’s Art of War was split into a couple of hotfixes and the fighter revamp got put on hold. Currently, fighters hold agro through a combination of taunts, hate transfers from Assassins, Coercers, etc., and by putting out superior DPS. In the current situation Shadowknights are putting out more DPS in multi-target fights than some “DPS” classes. The intention of this well-intentioned fighter revamp is for fighters to be able to hold agro in a fight entirely by taunting...
ArsTechnica.com is reporting that 60 Terabytes of Raw Server Logs from the EverQuest II universe captured over the last 4 years have been provided to a collaborative group of academic researchers — including psychologists to epidemiologists — at a number of institutions. Dmitri Williams introduced the project and described how researchers have been approaching various game developers over the years. He paraphrased the conversation with Sony as: “What do you collect?” “Well, everything—what do you want?” “Can we have it all?” “Sure.” The end result is a log that includes four years of data for over 400,000 players that...
As I predicted, the Lavastorm revamp will take a page from the Everfrost revamp last fall. As posted by timetravelling here: Travel around lavastorm will be MUCH MUCH easier. We’ve added more teleporters as well as travel mount paths. None of the old content is slated to be removed, some of the mobs will see slight tweaks and might be moved around a bit, but we don’t plan to actually remove any quests or content. The level 80 content is actually in brand new areas we’re adding to the island, none of the old areas are being overwritten. Lots...
From timetravelling‘s post here: The x2 (new raid zone) is going to be balanced specifically for people who do Not have mythicals. Our aim is that once you get some good TSO gear, such as the tier2 legendary set, you’ll be able to clear–or at least begin clearing–this zone. Mythicals should not be required for any stage of the instance. In fact, I created a brand new buffbot for test-copy so that we can put intrepid testers into legendary-ish gear and test the zone that way, sans-mythical. And, when I said new armor appearances, I didn’t mean recolors. That’s...
Selected quotes from EQ2 Forums: Last summer, at Fan Faire, we discussed making some changes to the Fighter classes, in order to bring them back in line with our original vision, where all fighters manage their own aggro, instead of relying on other group members to channel them some hate. We released the first part of these changes last year, and placed the second group of them out on our Test Server several weeks ago. The response has been tremendous, on both sides of the coin. The whole team has been taking feedback from you, both from our in-game...
UPDATE: I have stricken out all parts of the strategy which are no longer applicable as of July 14th hotfix. Venril Sathir, leader of the Sathirians, will challenge us in ways we have not had to deal with before. Venril Sathir is not a DPS fight. Venril Sathir does not hit very hard or require a lot of healing. Venril is just a totally different kind of fight than most of us have ever had to deal with before. What Venril Sathir does is require intense concentration by each and every player on what is going on with your...
Kander slipped an interesting comment into the raging TSO Stinks topic: FYI: Stay tuned for the Shard of the Day solo quest, with some additional solo content. Cannot say more, but keep your eyes peeled for GU52. The current plan is that it will take a time investment similar to that of running an entire instance. So there you have it folks, while people have found a variety of more or less legitimate ways (which not everyone else approved of)Â to load up on Void Shards, now there is going to be an official way to get 1 shard...
The complaints about GU51 are rolling in. Even the biggest fanboys who usually cannot find fault with any of the EQ2 team’s well-intentioned changes are not happy with what seems to most to be a rushed, massive change to something that has taken 4 years to develop in its current form. The issue that many are bringing up is not only have fighter stances and taunts been changed dramatically, but most Hate transfer from Swashies, Assassin, Coercers, Rangers, and most other classes have been reduced dramatically or eliminated. It would probably have been wiser to make all the taunt...
The fighter rebalance in GU51 is coming, whether we want it or not. There is a lot of “The Sky is Falling” responses about it both Pro and Con. Here are some useful quotes: Originally posted by Aeralik: Prior to this change, tanks relied heavily on hate transfers and hate gain/hate reduction while dpsing to gain aggro. Now the emphasis is more on the tank achieving this with their abilities… Originally posted by Flaye: NOBODY should be getting a “set it & forget it” hate transfer, if we’re ALL supposed to be playing more intelligently, paying more attention, &...
According to Kirstie, Game Update #51 will be coming to the Test Servers on or around January 7th. [link] What should we expect in GU51? Here are some quotes from Aeralik: The focus of part 2 is looking at the different ways players gain ( or lose ) hate and putting more emphasis on player responsibility. You will likely see the numbers scale up on taunts a lot and hopefully fighters will start to look more at their threat per second while tanking and less so on the raw dps output we see now. With the changes offensive and...