Feldon
Today’s update adds Haste to quested Scout and Fighter gear in Skyshrine and the Withered Lands, as well as hopefully fixing the Class Focus effects on items. Prior to the patch, if you equip more than 1 item with a “Class Focus”, only the last item equipped has its effect applied. From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL You can now properly join group members in Skyshrine instances. POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Greater Faydark Reanimated Nexus Scion and scorched skeletal wizards respawn reliably now.
Raiding
EQ2Wire is proud to present our Game Update 63: Skyshrine Frequently Asked Questions guide. UPDATED April 24, 2012. After the jump, find out how to reach the Withered Lands and Skyshrine, what kind of solo, group, and raid content is available, a bit more about Prestige Points, and how to get started in Game Update 63 regardless of your play style!
Here are your official Game Update 63 Update Notes from the EQ2 Forums: The Destiny of Velious saga continues as adventurers breach the barriers of the Withered Lands seeking entrance to Skyshrine, the glorious ancient dragon city! The great citadel of Skyshrine has long housed the Claws of Veeshan dragons behind its massive walls and arcane protections. Now, the unthinkable has happened — it has become besieged by powerful forces. Battle and befriend dragons and their wurmkin in the forbidden city of Dracur. Explore the past to unravel mysterious events that transformed the formidable draconic city into a battlefield...
Tomorrow is the big day for the release of Game Update 63 : Skyshrine. Last week, EverQuest II Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale and Designer Carlos “Gninja” Mora led a number of MMO press sites on a tour of Game Update 63: Skyshrine. It looks like the Press Embargo was lifted at midnight: TenTonHammer — EverQuest II Game Update 63: Skyshrine – A Visual Tour Massively — A land corrupted and a city under seige: A look at GU63 with the EQII team EQ2 ZAM — Preview: EverQuest II Game Update 63: Skyshrine MPOGD — EverQuest II: Game Update 63:...
Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, EverQuest Franchise Director of Development, steps up and hosts the second Game Update 63: Skyshrine Preview Webcast, with guests Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, EverQuest II Senior Producer, and Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, EverQuest II Lead Designer. After the jump, notes about the Game Update 63: Skyshrine Part 2 Webcast, as well as hints about Prestige Classes, the Qeynos Revamp, and more!
So if you’ve clicked on this article looking for a transcript of last month’s Game Update 63: Skyshrine Part 1 webcast, we have a last minute change. This won’t be a transcript but a summary. If this seems like bait-and-switch, realize that we tuned into the webcast to see: Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, EQ2 Senior Producer Akil “Lyndro” Hooper, EQ2 Lead Designer Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, EverQuest Franchise Director of Development and there was a slight change in the guest list to: Kyle “Kander” Vallee, Assistant Lead Designer Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson After the jump, what we were able to take away...
From EverQuest2.com: With all the new Heroic and Raid content being released in Game Update 63: SKYSHRINE, we just had to go over and get the inside scoop from Assistant Lead Designer Kyle “Kander” Vallee. Piestro: How difficult is the heroic and raid content available in Game Update 63: SKYSHRINE? Is this targeted at only the more advanced players or will this content be suitable for every skill level? Kander: We are really making an effort to see that heroic content is broadly accessible to everyone and try to cover every play style, from the causal solo player to the group player who wants...
If you’ve been concerned about how much AA XP grinding you’ll have to run this upcoming Double XP weekend to prepare for Game Update 63, it looks we’re about to be graded on a curve. As per a Test Update Note and discussion thread on In Testing Feedback, it looks like the AA Experience Curve is being flattened: We have modified the AA XP tables reducing the amount of experience necessary for advancement levels 1 to 280. When you log in your character they will be converted from the old tables to the new tables this will cause most...
A recurring controversy in EverQuest II is the ability to sell or gift looting rights to a player who was not present at the time the mob died. This could be an alternate raider who was sitting out, a player who went linkdead at the crucial moment during the fight, or it could be a player who “buys” the item in auction. Last night two forum topics were created on the EQ2 forums suggesting that SLR had become impossible on Test, and that only players who had been present at the time of the kill could loot items from...
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Fixed a bug where some NPCs were still critting on players. Charmed players will no longer crit at all.
From the EQ2 Forums: CRITICAL MITIGATION REMOVAL Critical Mitigation (the stat) has been removed from the game. NPCs no longer use Critical Bonus to add to critical damage. Buffs and debuffs that had Critical Mitigation elements to them have had those elements replaced with other elements instead, so that those buffs/debuffs do not lose effectiveness. Critical Mitigation values on adornments have been replaced with maximum health bonuses. NOTE: This change has no effect on PvP game play. The “PvP Critical Mitigation” stat is still useful for game balance in PvP play and is not being changed.
From Holly “Windstalker“ on the EQ2 Forums: Hey folks, I noticed there had been questions on exactly when Critical Mitigation will be removed from PvE items and Crit Bonus removed from NPCs. We have decided to push the change live with the Hotfix tomorrow. If anything changes on this front, I’ll stop in, but tomorrow’s the day! P.S. PvP Crit Mitigation will still exist on items.
Dethdlr
SOE has laid their cards on the table for Game Update 63. First up, a level cap raise to level 92. No, that’s not a typo. As of April 17th, players will be able to gain 2 more levels, as well as a new form of player advancement called ‘prestige points’. GU63 brings the promised Destiny of Velious content of new group and raid instances, a variety of solo content includind a new overland zone and more! Also Age of Discovery owners will be able to tame new Beastlord warder types. Game Update 63 hits Test on Thursday, March...
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL The beastlord bar will now use the tooltip delay for hotbars rather than the default tooltip delay. ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION Vallon’s Tower [Non-Challenge] Normal Mode Vallon Zek should now drop 2 breastplate patterns. Sullon’s Spire [Non-Challenge] Normal Mode Hragdold the Frenzied should now also drop 2 bracer patterns.
This week, we’ve heard things crashing and crumbling down from all directions in the EQ2 community, so it was easy to miss an in-game barrier being shattered. We’re talking of course about the Plane of War! On August 25, 2011, Game Update 61 arrived, bringing with it the challenging Drunder and the War of Zek which rages inside it. It has taken six months for the first raid guild to clear the towers of Sullon, Tallon, and finally Vallon Zek on challenge mode, and thus unlocking the Plane of War on the Antonia Bayle server. We took a moment...
Believe it or not, time marches on and there are still semi-weekly updates to talk about, so… MERCENARIES Mercenaries should do much less damage in PVP combat. This should have no affect PVE combat. ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION Plane of War The Enraged War Boar now stands guard near the zone entry. Vallon’s Tower [Challenge] During the final Vallon Zek fight, The Vallonite Volley Commander will limit the locations he spawns at. You may be wondering what in the world those last 2 line items are about. MMO Design Suggestion: If you are designing a raid progression zone, and...
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL This update includes a speculative fix for the issues causing some assets, like NPC quest icons, not to appear correctly. Update: Alas, this has not resolved the problem. MERCENARIES Mercenaries using the spell “Solar Flame” should no longer cause players to not be able to cast “Solar Flare” ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION Fixed a bug where an NPC could “double cast” a spell. Vallon’s Tower [Challenge] During the final Vallon Zek fight, only 2 Vallonite Aces will spawn per wave of adds. Fighters will no longer be hit with Tactical Dilema during the fight. ...
A fix has been found for the AoE Double Casting that many Velious raid mobs have been guilty of. This required in-depth analysis of the logs which have been generated especially to determine why these mobs were exhibiting this behavior. From Maevianiu on the EQ2 Forums: We were finally able to reproduce this and a fix for it will be in the next hotfix. Thank you for the detailed descriptions when it happened it really helped dig into the logging to find the cause. It was related to people dying and rezzing. Accepting a rez while he is casting...
From the EQ2 Forums: ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION Vallon’s Tower [Challenge] Players should get the correct message when entering the blue shielded dome in the Vallon Zek fight. During the final Vallon Zek fight, only 2 Vallonite Aces will spawn per wave of adds. Fighters will no longer be hit with Tactical Dilema during the fight. DUNGEON MAKER Fixed an issue with vitality not applying correctly in dungeon maker instances. ITEMS Gnomish Anti-Camo Goggles can now be equipped by any class. LIVE EVENTS Erollisi Hearts a’Flutter: Antonica – The Essences of Erollisi should no longer spawn within unreachable tree...
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Travelling from Great Divide to Eastern Wastes via the Griffon mount should no longer drop players randomly into the water. Travelling to Kylong Plains using the Global Travel Bell should no longer drop players randomly into the water. Fixed a bug where the client could get stuck in a “sending mail” mode making it impossible to send additional mails until restarting the client. ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION Vallon’s Tower [Challenge] Adds that spawn during the final Vallon zek fight spawn less frequently and have less health. Warlord’s Fury and Siphon cast during the final...
From Zoltaroth on the EQ2 Forums: We are working on the memory issues, though they are not memory leaks. There was actually a change that went live on Tuesday that should help with the memory footprint increase we saw with AoD. There are some other fixes as well still in the pipeline. Pathing should be coming to live fairly soon. It was enabled on test for certain zones but not all zones had the new pathing built for them yet. There were also some issues we found on test that we want to fix before it goes live. They...
From EverQuest2.com: GENERAL You can now access your mail without a mailbox! You can either click the mail buff in your buff window, select mail from the EQ2 menu, or use the /start_mail command! (NOTE: You will only be able to send and receive items and coin by actually clicking on a mailbox in the world.) ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION Tallon’s Stronghold [Challenge] Players have more time to defeat Decorin Deathbringer in the Tallon Zek fight before Tallon empowers him. Vallon’s Tower [Challenge] Players have more time to defeat Kulaxis in the Vallon Zek fight before Vallon empowers him.
The announced removal of Critical Mitigation will coincide with the conversion of Yellow and Red Crit Mit adornments into Health adornments. So why will the replacement adornments have less Health (less than 250 points each) than White health adornments? According to Omougi, it’s because the EQ2 team thinks we should have other viable choices, like DPS. Adornments should be about choice! From Omougi on the EQ2 Forums: Our goal with these adornment and spell conversions is to give you guys something in the place of nothing essentially. Before, you were playing a zero-sum game if you had enough crit...
From Silius on the EQ2 Forums: Just to clarify some confusion. Crit mit as a mechanic is being removed. NPC crit bonus was countered by crit mit and we are reducing crit bonus to 0 across the board. Critical avoidance is staying around. Critical avoidance is an NPCs way of contesting your chance to critically hit them. Replacing the adornments with HP is not to compensate for anything. Since the critical mitgiation stat is no longer useful we are converting to a stat that benefits all players. The goal is for this change to not change the difficulty of...
In what may go down as the best decision in EQ2 history, or a total overreaction to a problem that could have been solved with a 15-20% reduction across the board, Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson has announced that in the very near future, the Critical Mitigation stat will be COMPLETELY GOING AWAY. First introduced in The Shadow Odyssey, greatly expanded in Sentinel’s Fate, and then becoming the most important stat within Destiny of Velious as an alternative form of progression to raising the level cap (which is technologically challenging), here’s the announcement of this revelation from the EQ2 Forums: We’ve...