Nobody likes to be picked last for a team, yet the days where any player with level-appropriate gear could contribute in a meaningful way to the majority of dungeons introduced in an EverQuest II expansion are long gone. The straightforward turn-and-burn fights up to and including Kunark zones have given way to heavily scripted 6-person mini-raids. All but the easiest Velious dungeons have substantial checks on Gear, Alternate Advancements, and Skill.

I’ve talked to several players over the last week about Dungeon Finder and the recurring theme has been — Players who have normally been skittish about asking to join a group are queueing themselves up for Dungeon Finder, regardless of Gear, AAs, or Skill. They seem to figure ‘What have I got to lose?’

From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums:

Hey, folks,

We’ve listened to feedback and there were four areas we agreed needed to be improved to make the feature more useful. Below the list of those four major improvements:

1) The problem: People were joining the DF queue as “Random” and then declining group after group until they got the dungeon they wanted. The solution: If you queue and then receive a group invite…and then decline it…you will then suffer a 15-minute time penalty before you can re-queue again. This solution has no effect on people using the DF normally, but penalizes those that are trying to exploit the +25% bonus XP element.

With today’s update, the entirely optional Beastlord Prelude #2 quest goes live.  It provides an explanation for where Beastlords have been and why they’re now returning to Norrath. Don’t worry — whether you complete these brief lore quests or not, anyone who purchases the EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion (when it goes on sale) will be able to create new Beastlords in November.

More controversial in today’s update is the removal of any “shard” cost from Thurgadin and Ry’Gorr armor.

You can expect crafters to be exceedingly busy today as they fulfill orders for full sets of Thurgadin armor as it is now essentially free minus the cost of common materials. Ry’Gorr armor also requires one of the tradeable gems listed below from Kael Drakkel zones. Don’t forget to tip your crafter!

If all crafters are currently assisting other customers, or you just prefer to go the Vendor route, Thurgadin and Ry’Gorr will be happy to sell their armor to allies with +40,000 faction, and a few plat. In the case of Ry’Gorr armor, you’ll also need one or more of the above gems from Kael Drakkel.

Check out EQ2Wire’s Guide to Velious Heroic Armor & Jewelry

Apparently any possible disruption this might cause to Progression or reduction in Tower of Frozen Shadow 1-3, Pools, Ascent, and Fortress groups hasn’t dampened the spirits of players excited to get free lootz for all their alts! Don’t worry, be happy!

Here are the results of our Wednesday survey EQ2Wire Asks: Will You Use Dungeon Finder? Results are as of Oct 10, 2011 01:00 PDT.

Do you think the Dungeon Finder will be popular?

Total Votes: 1185

This week we’ve seen the introduction of the Dungeon Finder, and what may be the end of “Shards” (Void Shards, Marks of Manaar, and Primal Velium Shards), at least for acquiring sets of armor.

Primal Velium Shards

First, let’s tackle the removal of Primal Velium Shards from the “shard armor” equation. The EQ2 team continues the minimalist approach to discussing and announcing mechanics changes, with this reactionary explanation from Gninja:

The Thurgadin, Ry’gorr, and Drunder armor sets are direct upgrades to each other. They should scale in difficulty to obtain and that difficulty was off. That was one of the reasons the Thurgadin armor was rarely purchased. If its easier to obtain better armor somewhere else then why get that armor to begin with? With these changes the lower tier armors are a bit easier to obtain making the chase be more for the Drunder armor sets rather than having to do the shard grind repeated for each tier.

SOE has been exceedingly tight-lipped about the upcoming EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion, now just 5-6 weeks away by our estimates. In the process of searching for any kind of official press releases, we found two sites which covered EverQuest II at Fan Faire that we hadn’t seen mentioned before.

Did you know that MMORPG.com interviewed Dave Georgeson about the EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion during Fan Faire?

Did you know GameTrailers did a 4:54 interview with Dave Georgeson at this year’s Fan Faire where he talks about Design Your Own Dungeon?

Here are your Update Notes for Friday, October 7, 2011:

DUNGEON FINDER

• You will no longer lose infamy (a PvP stat) when joining a dungeon finder group.
• The dungeon Cauldron Hollow should now be listed as a 30-40 dungeon instead of 30-45.

Meanwhile on the Test and Test Copy servers, a new feature which will help with Dungeon Finder:

Sentinel’s Fate and Destiny of Velious dungeons now have mission givers located within the entrance of the zones.

EQ2Wire wants to know… Will you use the Dungeon Finder? Will your friends? Take the reader survey and we’ll publish the anonymous results soon!

From EverQuest2.com:

You asked for it – we delivered! The Dungeon Finder matchmaking system for EverQuest II is finally here! No longer will you have to scour the Looking for Group, Trade, or Auction channels to find a dungeon group. We’ve developed an amazing tool that does the work for you. All you need is to come prepared with your best adventuring outfit and rations.

Tomorrow’s Update brings us a positively reviewed revamp to the Troubador class, as well as a nerf rebalancing of the Dirge mythical effect. However the biggest feature in Thursday’s patch is the widely anticipated Dungeon Finder group-forming tool. Dungeon Finder will be isolated to each server at first, becoming cross-server at some point in the future.

This update does not include the controversial removal of Primal Velium Shards from heroic armor. That change will likely go in next week.

No sooner than we’ve posted a long-simmering article about Velious’ steep heroic progression than changes have hit Test which could turn EQ2’s heroic progression on its ear. Brace yourself. Everything you know about Velious shard armor is about to change.

Are you spending much time in Kael Drakkel? Drunder? Elements of War? That’s ok, neither are most other people.

EQ2 has a storied history of challenging dungeons. Players who have been around since the Fallen Dynasty fondly recall Nizara for its breathtaking challenge. Echoes of Faydwer delivered the instant classic Estate of Unrest. Kunark followed up with the mid-summer release of Veksar 2 and Runnyeye 2 (both forerunners of so-called Hard Mode zones). The Shadow Odyssey had a pair of zingers — Ruins of  Guk and the Palace of Ferzhul. However no EverQuest II expansion has played host to as many difficult dungeons at one time as the Destiny of Velious.

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 damage from the breath weapons that the Statue of Rallos Zek uses is easier to mitigate. The statue of Rallos zek will wait a couple of seconds after it says its text before casting retaliation of zek on itself.

Tallon’s Stronghold [Challenge]

• General Aakita and Utehk have less maximum health.

Great Divide and Eastern Wastes

• Critbonus has been removed from all overland mobs. Critical mitigation is no longer required to survive.

From the EQ2 Forums:

HOUSE RATING SYSTEM

• The House Rating System has been modified to use the median value of all ratings instead of a simple average.
• This will reduce the effect caused by players leaving extremely low or extremely high values that are outside of the norm for that house.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Kylong Plains

• Gregor Footstomper, Warlord Di’Ouz, Gorguolatha and Widow Mistress Xalthira in Kylong Plains should now drop treasure.

Nektulos

• All Griffin flight paths in Nektulos will now function properly.

ITEMS

• Fixed an issue where the incorrect leg shader would appear when wearing kilts.
• The Deepwater Researcher’s Sigil can no longer be traded.
• Kael and Drunder group BPs have been modified to better fit within the progression.
• Temple of Rallos Zek Raid Hard mode BPs have had their power increased.
• Fixed the focus effect for Hard mode Illusionist robes.
• Simmering Odachi of Feverous Advance now properly displays as a Fabled item.
• Fixed crit values on Hard mode Drunder belts.
• Velious instance rare loot has been rebalanced.

After a couple of false starts, it looks like EverQuest II’s Dungeon Finder feature will be hitting the Test and Test Copy servers today. It’s important to note that the EQ2 Dungeon Finder feature will NOT allow cross-server grouping when it goes live. That’s planned for a distant future update.

From SmokeJumper on the EQ2 Forums:

Hi, folks,

The GU 61 feature that got delayed, “Dungeon Finder” is coming to your Test server on Friday, 9/20, in the morning update.

Here’s an early peek at the release notes you see then. There are definitely still bugs in the system, but we need your help to shake out the issues.

Try it at different levels, if you can. Some of you may find that you rediscover forgotten content you haven’t seen for a long time.

Looks like Dungeon Finder is just about ready to go to Test and Test Copy.

From Zoltaroth‘s Twitter feed:

Just finished play testing Dungeon Finder for EQ2 again. It’s almost ready for test server, very exciting!

Friday September 16 UPDATE from SmokeJumper:

It should hit the Test server today. We have one last playtest to do this morning to be sure, and if it passes that, then to Test it goes!

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 in the process?

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 Dead, you can now find an explorer within the zone that will reward you for your efforts!

ITEMS

• Critical chance should no longer appear on items below level 80.
• Treasured items between 40 and 69 have been rebalanced.
• War Runes are now heirloom.
• Legslot items that did not have a valid appearance should now be less revealing.

QUESTS

• The Essence of Fear and the mass of iksar spirits necessary for the quest “The Name of Fear” should now be visible within the Shard of Fear.

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.

From SmokeJumper on the EQ2X Forums:

We’re aiming to put it on the Test server this weekend and then take it to Live in a week or two.

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.