Feldon
A selection of Velious raid mobs have been doubling up on Area-of-Effect attacks since the expansion’s launch nearly one year ago. Atan (of Unrest) summed up the issues: Condition 1: Modifieable timers line up such that a mob casts 2 different abilities simultaneously. Condition 2: Ability that normally comes ever 40 seconds comes twice in a row with no delay. Seems they are both bugs to me, but condition 1 is probably just a result of your design. Maevianiu is getting serious about addressing the AoE double-casting by raid mobs in Velious raid zones and had these responses: I...
Raiding
Here are your Update Notes for January 31, 2012: GENERAL Fixed a bug where some characters wouldn’t show on character select. ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION Tower of Frozen Shadow (Raid) Tserrina’s spell “Wing Buffet” should no longer cause priests to become knocked back. Adds spawned from shadow doors should no longer spawn quite as quickly. The number of adds that spawn from shadow doors has been slightly reduced. Tower of Frozen Shadow: Umbral Halls Demanti Sheda should no longer have issues resetting his encounter. Demanti Sheda’s spell “Paralyzing Fear” should now stun instead of fearing and has been reduced...
Raiders continue to wait for a fix to the double-casting of AoEs first reported shortly after the release of Game Update 61 in August 2011. This issue has been discussed here here and recently here. We got a We’ll look into it from Kander on October 27, 2011 but have received no further communication on the issue. Meanwhile, there are a few tweaks coming to the difficulty of Drunder Raid Zones. These changes are currently on Test will likely go live next Tuesday. ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION Vallon’s Tower x4 (Tower of Tactics) [Challenge] Ambassador Grindstone will no longer...
Here are your update notes for January 10, 2012 from the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Fixed a bug where you would have to recast buffs on group members every time you zone. Fixed random lighting bugs on characters and environments. Players will now receive achievement credit for earning hall of fame status if they are offline when awards are processed. ACHIEVEMENTS Sense of Urgency: Debone Bonewing should correctly update when defeating the zone boss in under 30 minutes from zone in. DUNGEON MAKER Dungeon Maker creatures will no longer temporarily reappear when defeated while under the effect of a tier-adjusting...
Here are your Update Notes for December 20, 2011 from the EQ2 Forums: DUNGEON / PLAYER HOUSING RATINGS The house and dungeon leaderboards have now been converted from the previous 5-star rating system to a new “Like” system. When visiting a house or completing a dungeon maker zone you now have the option to “Like” the zone in either of the two categories. The leaderboards are now based on the accumulation of likes. Awards continue to work as before and are given to the players at the top of the leaderboard.
From the EQ2 Forums: GENERAL Fixed a bug with the 48 hour grace period for trade for some no-trade and heirloom items. Magic Carpet guild hall amenity now has Fens of Nathsar as a destination. Fixed a bug where loading a profile from your Mirror of Reflected Achievements would reset your AAs instead of loading the profile.
From the EQ2 Forums: Age of Discovery is the eighth expansion of the groundbreaking EverQuest II franchise. Age of Discovery offers never-seen-before features including user-generated content and the re-imagining of the Beastlord class from the original EverQuest release. You can make your mark in-game by creating your very own Dungeon, hire some much needed help for your heroic battles, push tradeskilling research to new heights, customize your weapons at the forge, and of course, play as a Beastlord. There’s a lot to like about this expansion!
From the EQ2 Forums: Fixed an issue with the 48 hour no-trade grace period. Fixed an animation issue with the Soga Human Female model riding on the Terrorbird mount. With the first fix, it will, once again, be possible to simply collect all the loot during a group or raid and trade it to people at the end, or trade items within a group/raid (those who were present for the kill) in case of a looting mistake.
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Challenge Mode NPCs Several challenge mode NPC effects that were incurable are now curable as curses. These include Paralyzing Venom, Mesmerizing Web, and Corrosive Residue in the Aaranae Arcimae fight. Combat Madness in the General Aakita fight. Deathtouch in the Lichlord Skulldugger fight and several others. Cooperative Strike is no longer always fatal each tick, it does about half your max health in focus damage with each tick now. Temple of Rallos Zek: Foundations of Stone [Challenge] Greater warboars during the statue of rallos zek fight have less maximum health. Tallon’s...
Tuesday’s update seems to have disabled the 48 hour grace period for trading loot/items between the members of a group or raid. This change was pushed straight to Live with no testing. And now it may be that the reasoning for this “fix” was to stop a low-priority “exploit”. From Crismorn of Nagafen: SoE tried to fix Contested Kael quest pieces from being traded between group members and thought it was so important and such a huge issue that breaking the entire ability to trade any type of dropped loot would be an acceptable loss, or they [did] just...
Dethdlr
Smokejumper responded to a thread from nine days ago on the EQ2 Forums asking for a clear answer to what exactly is Age of Discovery. He basically said what we already knew about the content included in Age of Discovery. Reading through it and some of his follow up posts, it looks as though the “expansion” will be coming out near the end of November but price and distribution information won’t be released until next week by the marketing folks.
Here are your update notes for today, October 12, 2011: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION All Drunder x4 raid zones Sullon’s Spire, Tallon’s Stronghold, and Vallon’s Tower: The named boss NPCs do less damage and have slightly lower health. Tallon’s Stronghold x4 raid zone [non-challenge] The banners that spawn during the Tyrax Terrolus fight now have less health.
Today’s update removes the need for Critical Mitigation from Velious overland zones, as well as Kael Drakkel: Throne of Storms and the Temple of Rallos Zek (non-challenge). From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Sullon, Tallon and Vallon x4 raid zones (challenge versions) Many of the adds in the boss encounters now have reduced health. Sullon, Tallon and Vallon x4 raid zones (non-challenge versions) In the non-challenge instances of these raid zones NPC bosses now have less health and do somewhat less damage with their melee attacks and spells. Temple of Rallos Zek: Foundations of Stone [Challenge] The...
Here are your update notes for today, September 20th, 2011: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Fortress of Drunder: Citadel of V’uul (x2) Overall health of trash and boss encounters has been lowered. PLAYER HOUSING Added a unique house ID number to saved house layout files. This can be used to identify a file from one house that has the same zone as another house. NOTE: Old version 5 files should still be loadable. New saved files will be version 6 and include the unique ID. ITEMS Kingdom of Sky “Cloud Mount” questline rewards have had set bonuses re-added to them....
EQ2 Associate Producer Domino has started a new thread in the public Test forum regarding some changes to Pathing in EQ2. It’s not clear if these changes are intended to address the Issues With Mob Warping which we have discussed in the past. We have made a change to the way pathing works in a few zones on Test server, and would like your feedback.Have you noticed anything different? Better or worse?
From the EQ2 Forums: Hello Troubadors! We have finally completed the first draft of our Troubador revamp and would like to get your feedback on these ideas. Our primary goal is to give Troubadors more options during combat that can have a clear effect on the fight. Viewed individually, some of the changes may be considered minor, but we hope all these small and moderate changes will add up to a much more dynamic and interesting class.
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Plane of War Players may now enter the plane of war, once someone on the server has defeated all 3 demigods of war (Sullon, Vallon and Tallon Zek) in challenge mode. Drunder x4 raid zones Players can now enter the challenge mode Drunder x4 raid zones without having killed the previous demi-god in challenge mode. Sullon’s Spire x4 raid [Challenge Mode] Aaranae Acrimae: Her adds have less health. The rage devourer no longer casts the aoe multistrike.
From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Kunark Creatures found within Kylong Plains, Kunzar Jungle, Fens of Nathsar and Jarsath Wastes are once again dropping items. Stonebrunt Highlands Vreshana Kestral will no longer send characters to The Palace of Roehn Theer if they opt not to go.
Tank and Spank vs. Complex Scripting vs. Fun In recent years, I’ve seen numerous posts from people complaining about how the different group/raid encounters work. A lot of the complaints say that they don’t want simple “Tank and Spank” encounters. But they also don’t want encounters with complex scripting, fail conditions, cure fests, etc. They want encounters that are fun and challenging without any of those things. So it got me wondering, how do you do that? How do you make an encounter without complex scripting, fail conditions, cure fests, etc. without turning it into a tank and spank...
Here are your update notes for today, September 8, 2011. Of note, War Runes (red, raid-only adornments) are going Heirloom! We’re not really sure what the removal of Crit Chance from lower level items is about — maybe it’s a typo and they meant Critical Mitigation. Considering they just went through and added Crit Bonus to thousands of items (which does nothing without its sister stat Crit Chance), removing Crit Chance would make no sense. From the EQ2 Forums: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Silent City: The Delving Dead If you have completed all the collection quests for the Delving...
Here are your September 7, 2011 EQ2 Patch Notes: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Pedestal of Sky Fixed the missing geometry in this zone. Foundations of Stone [Challenge] The blink portion of Icy Snap AOE that the Statue of Rallos Zek casts will now only blink players a max of 2m, and will only affect players a certain distance away from the statue, not players close to it. Sullon’s Spire x4 raid [Challenge Mode] Aaranae Acrimae: Her debuff to max health and mana is greatly reduced. Leechweb does less mana damage on its initial hit.
Progression is a funny thing. Funnel players into too strict a progression path of gear, of levels, of dungeons, and you take away player choice and limit options. Provide too many options or no clear path, and you have player confusion about what they’re supposed to do next in the line of progression. The Shadow Odyssey had a straightforward (if restricting for developers) progression, with 3 and later 4 tiers of armor from Heroic through to x4 Raiding. This is not to mention the open-to-all Shard of Hate raid zone which had internal progression from a named encounter that...
From the EQ2 Patcher: POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION Silent City: The Delving Dead Levels below 90 should actually have collections. TRADESKILLS Appearances on some tranquil threadbare crafted armor have been updated. The Scroll of Fire Seeds is now heirloom rather than no trade.
Game Update 61: “The War of Zek” UPDATE NOTES A GENERAL SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN GAME UPDATE 61: All dungeon and overland loot items have been re-itemized. What does this mean? It means loot everywhere should be legitimate for the level it drops for, no matter where you go now. Go explore some nooks and crannies you haven’t seen for a long time and get off the Golden Path! The loot’s good again. The Velious saga continues as you journey past the Citadel of Drunder to the Plane of War itself in a new dungeon and raid, and a...
After a growing silence about key parts of Game Update 61, specifically unexpected mechanics and itemization changes in high level gear, Salim “Silius” Grant, EQ2 Mechanics Lead, has stepped up and provided a detailed response to the issues as laid out so well by a determined player, Nevao in a thread entitled May we have a “State of the GU” post? Responses from Silius are in red: Itemization Changes Tier 3 to T8 revamp? Last time I checked there were still reports of items with insanely out of whack stats given the tier (mid-tier items with 40+ weapon skills...