Nice! Classes were one of the things I wanted to go through tomorrow and update a bit with relevant information. Perhaps making a new page with ideas for starting classes and long term outlook for dps, survivability and such.

Got to update the parsing page too. I found a better parsing program now.

Did some edits here and there as well. Will have more time tomorrow to do some more work, perhaps add some tips and tricks and so on.

Welcome back! Feel free to pop onto our Discord server as well if you haven't.

Ok, so I have been back and forth about posting all day. Why? Because usually nobody really gains much positive from discussing each other on forums. Yet I have decided I wanted to say something and the reason is simple. We play and chat with each other every day in a pretty small community and we should be able to get along. To get along, sometimes we need to talk through things and clear our hearts and heads. We are not blessed with too many forms of communications. I did previously try to have a one on one talk with you to prevent things from boiling because I felt you directed a lot of negativity towards me and I never felt I did anything to deserve that, but you never responded to me. I also just realized you have deleted many of the posts you posted here today and quite often you rapidly change, remove or edit your posts. I am pretty active here, so I read a lot of what goes in and then is deleted. Does this mean you regret what you write or what? Only you can answer that.

Tankus, you once said this game is the only joy you had left in life. I don't know how much truth there was in that, but regardless, we need to look at the perspective. This server is and has been so important for so many players through the years. Many of us have spent countless of hours through out the years both playing the game and improving it by making guides, macros, and maybe most importantly by being in game, helping other players out with questions and what not. You are one of the people that keep /ooc working and you help out whenever you can with questions. I have the upmost respect for you in that manner as I have for everyone else that like you has and is currently playing a role as a part of a small community and how help players on a day to day basis. At the end of the day, all we want is to play, have fun and interact with each other in a peaceful and meaningful manner.

I am pretty sure you may end up taking this the wrong way, as I am certain a fruitful discussion is best left for face to face, yet I will still let you know my feelings on the matter and hopefully we can change tracks a bit.I know this is not the correct thread for anything like this, but then again, EZ board has always had a life of it's own, so we'll see.

The thing that bothers me the most is that I get the impression that you assume a lot of things that I feel have no root in reality. That's why I want to ask for some perspective at the very least and please gather some facts before you post or talk about it in game. Secondly knowing how important EZ is for you, I want you to remember that it's equally important to many other players. Cutting down on your sarcasm and negativity directed towards other players, blaming people for doing stuff they have not done, putting yourself in the role as the victim so many times, while everyone else are wrong and against you, when often it's what you say or do that puts yourself in that situation. So often you can just blame yourself in my opinion. I am not trying to sit here on a high horse and lash out while seeming perfect myself, as I can assure you I am not. I welcome feedback on anything I do both positive and negative.

Here are some examples that directs my feelings on the matter:

You say that we are moving towards a server where you need a horde of boxes to play. Yet most people seem to do stuff you say you are not able to do. I can understand that you feel a change though, a much needed change in my opinion. After all, we came from Old Commonlands, Sunderock and Sleepers, all three of which you basically only need a warrior and some correctly executed skills and abilities to solo, not even needing a single other character, not to say they won't help though.
I'd say the server is moving in a good direction, where you can actually play with all your characters again and they can actually make a difference, whether you run 18 or 40. I don't know if these things you throw out are excuses or if you actually think we are moving towards needing 30+ characters to do content. It's totally wrong though and I am pretty sure you know this. What bugs you for real, only you can tell.

You also throw out incredible numbers here and there which when tested has no root in reality. I am talking about damage numbers for one. If something in the Tunare expedition one hits you for 3+ millions of damage, it means you are lacking mitigation or reading it wrong, simple as that. Then you rant on for making things too hard, i.e. Tunare, and excuse it by saying _you_don't run 30+ boxes and 6 clerics rotating Vie, when the fact is you can do the expedition with 6 characters and Vie is not at all needed to kill her.

You said today that everyone else has more playtime than you, assuming again that everyone else is in a better position that yourself. Yet it's not many moons ago when you said you stayed active during 6 hours killing Tunare and just a while before that, 8 hours farming Raulfer and no Mechi show. The amount of available time to play on EZ varies for all of us and is not significant to one person alone. Sometimes we are in a situation which allows for much game time and sometimes less.

You claim that I have made changes to the game, i.e. the Mechi shield, when I have never asked Draca about making a change to that shield.
You continued to trash talk my name in game chat due to this, like I had been doing any changes or anything wrong. It's really disrespectful of you.

You assume the gap between the soft and hardcore players are getting larger and larger. Gaps are and will always be a part of MMORPG's, just like most things in life. I don't really see any significant change to that on EZ server lately compared to the past. The more you play, the more you get, usually. That seems fair to me. Still I see nothing on EZ that a group of 18 can't do. You may not do it as fast as someone that put down the time to make more characters, but Tunare has brought scaling to the game and T11 may even follow. So the gap between soft and hard is actually moving in the direction you claim it's moving away from, in my opinion. One could easily argue that things are coming easier for the softcore players today already, compared to before. People are giving away double/triple loot, zone pulls and rots in many instances on a day to day basis just to mention two things on the top of my head.

The experience per mob has been pretty consistent in most tiers on EZ, so there is nothing new there.
Here are a few examples: ToFS 6 exp, Anguish 8 exp, VP 8 exp, LP 9 exp, OC 9 exp, Abyss 9 exp, Sunderock 11 exp.

I don't mind the experience being the same or about the same anyway. The added AA crystals you get in VP are meant to help with making the LRoA through killing and trading, which I think is fair. The fact that Tunare Expedition has a chance to drop a rank 5 LRoA adds even more fairness to it in my opinion. The huge amount of plat that the dragons drop will also help with creating instances and repopping them.

Obviously mass pulling body or with ZP in lower tiers will add more experience gain this way though, since they amount to about the same exp, but dies faster. That's fine in my opinion.

After nearly five years since the last time I remember we started a thread talking about T11, I find it almost unbelievable that it's finally being worked on. I am super hyped about it! I must say, at some point in the past, I had almost written it off entirely, as I'm sure others had too. Who would have thought that after what must be around 15 years since the EZ Server was made, we would still continue the tier progression? This is mostly thanks to people doing the work voluntarily, and recently, a big thanks to you, Draca. Thanks for moving the server forward and doing your best to continue the EZ vein with what is looking to be an exciting, content-rich, and well-thought-out new tier.

The release date is one thing, but even knowing that it's in process and being worked on makes me really happy. Dragonscale Hills looks like a very suitable zone, and I am really looking forward to entering the zone at some point and killing some new mobs and farming some new stuff. I like the focus on fewer mobs per fight and not the whole mass pulling chaos we've seen in the later years on EZ.

PS: Once I get in there, I'll be looking for an NPC called "Pain and Suffering," as you know we take great pleasure in such things on EZ

Good job fixing crap so we can have a merry time

Uhh... wait.. what?! Pets not being able to use UWs?! Next on the list... what?! Damn.. I got 4 pet classes with UWs being used on pets... and working on getting more but now that is gonna get nerfed? why?

Probably over-reacting but still.... was the nice thing about summoner bags and using UWs for the pets to proc the dd that comes with them, since they can't proc any strike augs in any of the non UWs you can equip them with.

Mix

I am sure there are more elegant ways of handling pet invulnerability. If anything I would not worry too much about Summoner's Pack and adding weapon procs to it, getting removed all together from the game, especially without anything to replace it to make up for any DPS loss. I think we can all agree that doing the Summoner's Pack quest allowing you to increase your pet's dps is something that should stay in the game for those that want to use it. But it may have to be altered a bit to remedy the hardcore tanking pets.

I was online that day and I caught most of the ooc chatter around how you had a project to try and kill Tunare with your pets. There was as has been noted earlier nothing secretive about what you were doing. You kept /ooc updated during the process.

After you had killed Tunare, you said this:

[Thu May 04 20:29:45 2023] Rirk says out of character, 'it's taken me almost 4 hours >< '
[Thu May 04 20:30:15 2023] Rirk says out of character, 'but i can afk and tend to my dad this way so it's all good for me.'

In the end, no one but yourself can say how much you were AFK and how much you were present at the keyboard during those 4 hours(6?) But obviously people will raise an eyebrow when you type stuff like that in /ooc. I am pretty sure you understand that. So you've explained yourself about it, nothing more to it as I see it.

How embarrassing , I hope he doesn't watch while I get intimate with Tunare!

 

WTH?! My Necro pets will die occasionally to Raulfer's dots and Tunare's dots.. and my Druid has died to Tunare. How does everyone else's pets, Druid or whomever can face tank Tunare when mine couldn't? I got 3 Druids and they get smacked down with the rest of my raid if I attempt Tunare. I guess I dont have the elite Druid class....

It's gear dependent. Does your druid have Shield of the Ages, Kote Bracer, Improved Goblin familiar? If you don't, no mitigation would be in place, except the werewolf form if you got that spell.

...It's been a well established fact that Necro pets are practically invincible in any tier, I've been tanking and killing stuff with one for years...

I find it weird that this has been allowed to remain as is if people has known about it for years. I guess the only reason I can think of is that it does not seem like a common theme on EZ that people in general use their pets as tanks.

I would not say it was your fault at all. This issue is larger than just your pets. Druids, Wizards, Enchanters and potentially other classes as well, mitigate more damage than they should. My Druids and Wizards can face tank Tunare way better than my Warrior. Druid can solo Tunare without needing any healing. Some mitigation issue is affecting the server in many ways right now, breaking the game as it's intended to work.

If anything, I would avoid AFK killing though, which is against the rules, technically speaking. I only mention this because you said you were doing it in /ooc while killing her with your pets.

Personally, I have not noticed any difference in the mobs up there. Ran up there and tested again today on Raulfers Personal Bodyguards. The max amount of rounds I get per mob is five swings. More often than not, 1-3 of those will miss or get dodged. I stayed up there for a while and when fighting single mobs, not once did I see any rounds above 5 hits. I also tried just wielding a 1 hander and no shield, makes no difference.

So this is not affecting everyone.

You know you're playing an old game when you need to tune down your computer for it to work properly! Jokes aside, good luck getting it to work!