EZ Server

Hello friends. Below are a list of some ideas I have been thinking about because I have way too much free time and was interested in some player feedback.

Zones:

CT:
Remove all of the default loot from bosses and trash (not including gems).

Airplane:
Add a boss like Angry Beholder and Ancient Dragon that may be triggered the same way Black Unicorn is triggered in Halloween event. The teleporter could require 50 t4 or 100 t3 tokens for spawning a boss that would drop gminor and gmajor essences along with some random armor and clicky items.

Anguish:
Add Jelvan's Keepsake chest to list of chests that may be opened via /open command.

Lopingplains:
Increase zone repop time to 12 hours. Currently players have to deal with repops while killing mobs triggered from the cycle.
Allow Loping Plains HP/Mana Regen to fit in any aug slot and increase mana regen amount to 500 from 300. Currently these augs become obsolete as soon as players accumulate Hp slot augments for all gear slots.

UPDATE 11/4
Add Plat bag to Greed mob in Loping Plains.

UPDATE 11/9
Create an epic downgrade vendor where players can hand in their 7.0s to receive a 6.0 epic. They would lose 7.0 book in the process but many players would appreciate this given they prematurely upgrade to 7.0 without realizing the change in aug slots.

Temple of Veeshan:
Remove all default loot from trashes and bosses (not including gems).
Make Red/Silver/Green scales stackable.
Increase chance for bosses to drop scales.
Increase chance for trash to drop ToV essences/ add increased chance for bosses to drop essences.
Add leaf augments to loot table of trash/ bosses(players confirmed with me they werent dropping).

Random:

Willowisps:
Add chance for willowisps to trigger boss spawns on death that drop increased number of Greater lightstones. Higher ranks could drop SLS' and some clicky items. The Halloween trigger event is really solid, why restrict it to just Halloween?

Spells:

Clerics:
Add higher rank of Word of Vivification.
Allow Seismic Shift spells to be usable by Clerics.

UPDATE
Warriors:
Create new upgrade to Angry Nerds aug for slot 22 weapons. Limiting the warrior 7.0 to one aug slot with only current angry nerds augs to fill it really makes the 7.0 1 hander worthless. Idea: make angerbomb, the warrior clicky from T4 (ID= 112644) the proc for the upgraded angry nerds item and increase the efficiency to make it proc more.

UPDATE 11/2
Mask Quest:
How many players have said something in ooc about turning items in they should have rather combined in a magic box? What if there was an item that served as a tutorial for using the magic box players upgraded as they leveled on the server. I was thinking a magic box could be added to character's inventory as well as a rank 1 noobie mask players could equip. A note could also be added instructing players that most items are combined in a magic box on this server and to understand the mechanism, they should purchase noobie mask rank 2 upgrade from the noobie vendor and then combine the upgrade + given mask in a magic box. Successive upgrades for the mask could be obtained in every custom zone players level up in until they are ready to raid. The ranks could continue after 70, implementing quests to the vendors present in each custom zone that ask for items gathered throughout the zone to result in an upgrade to the mask.

UPDATE 11/4
Ultimate Weapons:
Upgrade procs and clicky effects to Ultimate weapons X, XI, XII.
Add Ultimate fist type weapon and a 2hand slashing weapon.

Disagree on changing vie. And need plat drops added to tov and tofs 6/7.

I can't speak on the t6+ stuff.

I like most of the ideas for tiers that I do.   Would have to be a balancing of the God tier stuff that it's worth doing token wise.

The chain willowisp idea is cool.

Maybe a chance per turn in (say 1/500 T3 or 1/300 T4) to spawn this new boss. Possibly do a check to make sure no one t6 flagged or above is on island (so it wouldn't be a free kill type of thing for elites).



I disagree heavily. White is a bit too easy to get. I've been suggesting this for a year: On zone clear, 100% chance for ANY boss to spawn. This would help elites backflag faster and reward those that killed the entire zone with another chance at a boss instead of simply spamming instances.



This is partially why I'll likely never clear T6 anytime soon and T7 is my end. I do NOT have 3-4 hours that I can dump into the game in one sitting for several months. I get maybe 2h max, which may be days away from last play session. As a result, I'm highly unlikely to ever even make it to OMM. If T7 is a power grind with a lot of time required per session, I'll never make it.



I'm working on an event to help with this to some degree. :-)



Clerics and Word of Viv...maybe. Seismic Shift, never. Druids got earth based AoEs and will keep earth based AoEs. Clerics are not DPS and do not have any noteworthy AoEs. I am considering adding classifications (undead, animal, etc) spells that allow say a paladin to convert a mob's type temporarily (~3min) so clerics and paladins get horrifying damage/debuff potential via undead-only spells (fully theoretical example...).

Tower of Vie will be returned to partial melee rune (X% ignored until Y damage absorbed) since it was converted to int32 about 6 months ago (was int16 or ~32767 which is useless, int32 is ~ 2,147,483,647).

Shaman has Kiss of Antraygus (sp?) which is a poison based PBAOE, so not happening.

---

Reply back with other bits and I'll see if I can help with getting them created! :-D


-Hate

I think that is a good idea. I just suggested the drop rate on white because I think he is kind of a pain in the butt to spawn and players farming the zone for essences generally skip killing corals because its more efficient to clear non rooted mobs and repop the zone.

While I probably wouldn't use it even if it was available, clerics did get the same PBAOE as druids on live. Generally a few levels later.

Tremor: Druid 21, Cleric 34
Earthquake: Druid 31, Cleric 44
Upheaval: Druid 48, Cleric 52
Catastrophe: Druid 61, Cleric 64
Tectonic Quake Rk. 1-3: both 74
Tectonic Upheaval Rk. 1-3: both 79
Tectonic Tumult Rk. 1-3: both 84

The set from Omens expansion had different spell names, but the same damage it seems.

Earth Shiver: Druid 66
Calamity: Cleric 69

Both 1105 damage PBAOE

Clerics also got a PBAOE stun/dd line. So in that respect, they were better AOE dps than druids.

Again, doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Clerics are healers and don't really need the dps to be useful.

Surprising. I will consider it based on this info. Thank you Kaid


-Hate

 The part about Abyss ess would be nice to be addressed. The problem with making white a 100% chance is that for people who just want to farm the ess, there is only 102 coral on the zone and with a high level UW you could swim around and kill them all in like 10 minutes then repop and repeat. It's easy. But, adding a new boss that spawned after everything was killing with a 75% chance to drop one would give much better incentive to clear the whole zone, but not guarenteeing the essence.

Server not balanced around UW

Abyss is already the next easiest/fastest zone to farm essences in after Loping Plains and Anguish.  I would have no issues with making even more trivial to farm essences, but I also don't really see the need.

Right, but the point is... this is a 4 hour respawn zone now.  He is asking that it be upped to 12 hour as most people cannot kill the zone before respawn starts.  For the folks that have 4+ hours to blow (or 12 in the case of the requester), and can't kill the zone in 4, this change would help.

H8, I'm with you on the ticking clock mechanic, but that doesn't really apply to T6 does it?  Once you get thru Jelvan you have days to finish the remainder... right?

12 hours would be too long for T7.   There needs to be some challenged.    4 hours does feel a tad rushed, but 12 would be way too long. 

5 hours seems just about right.   

I think 8 would be fair.

Maybe the respawns could be broken up. Instead of EVERYTHING respawning in four hours, maybe annoying things like roamers and small trigger packs at four but rest at X hours?


-Hate

zone is pretty static, if you have issues clearing it, just team up w/ other people working on it

Seems like over complicating a simple fix. There really is no point to keeping the current ridiculously short length of the respawn timer: what negative impact would increasing the timer have? none. Worst case scenario is one types /say repop zone and start over.

Marx hit it on the head, the 4 hour respawn promotes teaming up with other people to clear it. I don't see the current respawn as a roadblock considering people were doing it in January withou issue .  Not to mention the influx of strike 5's that go a long way to gearing a crew up.

Point, but if I can't sink that time in a single sitting, then I'm 100% content cockblocked. :-)


-Hate

Dont really know why people would argue for keeping the shorter respawn time: even with gear clearing the zone can take a long time with a constant cycle. Its not that the short respawn time makes the zone hard. This game is not hard. Its just one of those dumb things that can be easily fixed. Make people team up for difficult encounters, not to beat a respawn time that causes frustration for players. Saying it is a cockblock is a bit extreme, but it is definitely an annoyance that does not need to be there.


Hate was exactly right with his original comment

I didn't argue for keeping the shorter respawn timer, I just pointed out that there's no reason to make it any longer than it is...people with less gear than current people have access to have been doing this for nearly a year.  And please understand that I'm not taking a shot at anyone, especially Hate who puts an assload of his free time into making this game more enjoyable for all of us...but people that are able to put in more time are the ones that are gonna have the shinies.  Hate knows when he gets to a point where he needs help, any number of us will step up and do it because he does it for us week in and week out.

To echo my opinion one more time, people were doing the clears in T7 before UW and before rampage was removed...you couldn't pull more than a handful of mobs without killing your crew when rampage was in game because they couldn't survive the damage.  The game hasn't gotten any harder, why does it need to be made any easier?

I'm all for people offering up solutions to what they see as problems, I'm just playing point-counterpoint.  The only time this game gets overly tedious for me is when you have to back flag new characters and bring them back up through gearing them, if there were a way to streamline that I'd be all for it.

You don't have to clear the zone to progress.   You will get boss chains in 1.5 hours or so.

I think 4 hours is fine.

Narl and I did it straight out of T6 in february - granted, we didn't farm it all in one sitting, but I think it was reasonably balanced. Made you wan't to go back again and again, and appreciate the chains that actually made it to Wrath.

Less whine, more grind!

Personal Opinions:

Would like to see a bit more V2 drop rate in ToFS either 3 or/and 4.  I hear it's great in 5, but by then "I believe" most people will have several UC'd chars.  Does anyone actually farm 4 for charms?

It seems like "most" people get their SoT X from halloween.  Perhaps stats could be raised a bit on the higher tiers (instead of just spell dmg # on the last one, could add incremental on all of them) or the quest could be made a bit faster so that the legit method of getting it isn't quite as unrewarding for time spent.  Perhaps adding a chain type event (and optionally making the chain pops indifferent con as not to punish lower players who just want the first tier for pull stick) similar to halloween.
I believe the X rank spell dmg does not stack with UC making it relatively trivial besides some resist and a chunk of HP once you get UCv2.

I'll also chime in and say I hope higher tiered content is not being balanced around UW.  I do not, however, think they should be nerfed in anyway for those who have them (I don't have one).  People put alot of time and effort into those and they deserve them.  If it means having them; you can roflstomp new content if it's not balanced around them, so be it, they deserve it.  Then again, only being in T6, I can't really say I know other than what Iv heard that it is or is not balanced around UW in the later tiers.

Is it time to add a rot bot to the next tier?

Kind of a dumb attitude to have. People need to get away from the notion that making suggestions = people whining. I thought youd understand with your big post asking for changes in ToV.

Hmm, valid point. I would like to retract my previous statement. Well done :-)


-Hate

Huh? Increasing the respawn timer in T7 is not making the game easier, its just removing the current stupid in the zone. The game should not be setup so someone has to sit at there computer for 4hours straight to effectively clear the zone. Anguish is not setup like that. ToV is not setup like that. A 12 hour respawn time or 8 hour respawn time even just makes sense because it gives plenty of time for players to clear mobs, kill bosses, and afk if need be which is completely understandable in an hour window. Given the size of T7 and the amount of mobs in the zone its just something that makes sense.

Backflagging is not really something to complain about - you can clear zones 10x faster than you were when you were progressing through them plus you can farm for UW/augs at the same time.

I think you are totally missing the point, T7 was designed as a mass-clear, dps required zone and in its current form it actually promotes and rewards people for teaming up to gear up.

 The is set up much the same way in T5, you won't be clearing the zone alone when you first break into it, anyone else at the same point in progression would benefit from teaming up with you to speed the clearing process. Hell, Hate used to organize public clears there that a lot of people showed up for. And much like T5, you don't have to clear the whole zone to get named mobs,  orcs and trees are a breeze and so are crocs/frogs. Are you suggesting T5 should have an 8 hour lockout on respawns as well? (http://)

i have been waiting to chime in on this. t5 is 4 hour respawns. when i was progressing through the first time, with a mix oc UC chars and non-UC, strike augs in the 4,5,6 range, and 4.0-5.0 weapons ... i could usually clear the zone with my toons in 4 hours or less, never really felt rushed. except when i first broke in, but was doing guild raids then. t6 is what 3 day respawn. i can clear through to jevlan event, and finish the clear the next day. t7 how is a giant PITA. i am now a mix of 6 UC2, 6 UC1, about 50% with 7.0 books, and augs are all 8's or 9's. takes me about 5 hours of solid killing ( well more now with the giant t7 war bp nerf) to clear zone by myself. so if i work left to right, by the time i am done with the far left loop, some of the respawn chains have popped up all over, and the far right loop and walkway down are repop. here lately i will devote an entire saturday to t7 if solo. last time i did this, in 8-9 hours of solid killing, saw very few 7 deadly sins.  8-12 hours sounds alot better.

No its not nearly as big and there is no spawn cycle. I do not know why people are putting up such a fuss about this issue - there are no negative consequences for increasing the respawn time for 12 hours. Lets move away from "ill help hateborne when he gets to t7 and so will everyone else so lets keep it the way it is!" and recognize that the way t7 is currently setup does not work as well as it COULD for many players that are unable to commit consecutive hours of play.

28 hours... Give people two evening sittings to clear it.

As Dim said, team up and you should be able to clear T7 in < 4 hrs np.    12 hours is waaaaaaay too long and would break the design of the zone.   Clear a mob group and have a potential to start a boss chain.   SD mobs start popping in cleared areas after 1.5 hours.     There needs to be a challenge,  5 hours tops.  

It can be done easily in 4 hours.    Definitely does feel a bit rushed but doable.     Team up and you can do it in 2 hours.

I will make note, if I have to team up with some overgeared to blast me through it, that isn't fun nor helpful. If it's easily done in 4h by gear-appropiate players, then that's probably fine. If I can only make that 4h mark getting some elite player in, then it's probably not ok.


-Hate

It isn't obsolete content and don't have to the clear the entire zone to get named mobs anyhow, I don't see why it needs to be dumbed down at all. If you want to clear the zone and can't do it before respawn then clear with other people, there should be plenty of folks with similar time constraints that would be happy to help. If you can't put enough time in to do content the way it was designed then ask for help or add more dps toons.

And before you claim that it doesn't make it any easier, why all the fuss over it?  Because it makes it much easier to move around the zone when mobs aren't in the way from point a to point b. Protip, you can move a character between any of the camps in the zone without aggroing mobs if you avoid traps.

To address Hate's concern, yes it can easily be done by 2 or 3 groups of appropriately geared players in the 4 hour Window.

*edited to 4 hour window, inadvertently put in 2

With both groups (1 grp 7.0's strike 9s and the other 6p0's strike 8s) we (Nesh and I) can't clear it all the way in 4 hours.

My vote for T7 repop would be 5-6 hours.

I find it kinda ridiculous that t6 is a three-day respop and t7 is four hour.

Anyone that's clearing it fast and wants repops can call the waypoint.

Just my opinion

Break the design of the zone.. what does that even mean lol. There are no negative consequences for increasing the respawn time to 12 hours. Make zones challenging for the encounters, do not require players to sit at the computer for consecutive hours to beat respawns; the argument is simple.

Its a good idea but with server reset killing triggered mobs I do not think this would work.

Beating the respawn is half the challenge in T7, increasing the respawn time makes the game easier. As it is now T7 seems very well tuned to me. It is possible to gear your entire crew yourself without ever even having to kill 90% of the zone. 4 hours is more than enough time to kill ~40 mobs so what's the problem? At the same time it rewards cooperation very well and that cooperation makes the zone waaay more fun and way less tedious.

I see no reason to implement a change that would do nothing but increase the number of  players sitting by themselves in their instances.

Nobody is forcing you to do anything. Like I said you can gear every class with every item from the zone without ever clearing the majority of it. The respawn timer is part of the challenge, just because you don't like it, doesn't mean others dislike it as well.

Have at it

http://www.eqemulator.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=WindowsServerSetupGuide

oh stop it dont be dramatic.



/facepalm. Donno why players are arguing for not changing something that wont have any negative impact on the game. Clearing a zone before repops as a challenge... really? lol. So basically youre arguing for players sitting at their computer for consecutive hours. Not really a realistic challenge for a lot of people. The only thing that takes anytime in t7 is killing all the triggers: I can clear the zone in 45mins but killing all the spawn cycles even with coth bots is the time sink of t7.

Can you clarify the issue a bit for me?

I have always just killed random mobs until a bat spawns, and that's how I geared myself. With random luck I would have from 1-4 bats in an hour. Between traps and random kills I found myself with a constant supply of boss chains.

I guess I just enjoy the randomness of the zone over obsessing over the guaranteed path.

I haven't done t7 in a couple months, so if things were changed then just ignore my comment.

No sarcasm or rudeness in this comment. The server you're looking for is called The Hidden Forest. The server is all about encounter mechanics. Problem is, once you beat it, you're waiting on new content. That's why I came to EZ from THF; I never run out of things to do here.

Chuckles

Then whats the problem?    You can make really neat zones if you follow the link I posted. 

Hail, Blue con.

hulkpuch just mad he cant buy everything in game to progress =(....QQ more!

hehe i miss u fugitive come back to us

I appreciate the fact that Hulk saw something as an issue to him and has attempted to voice his concerns, I don't think there's any reason to take shots at him for it.  If you have some constructive feedback to offer up, by all means say it but why be petty?

Getting back to the original intent of the post, I agree T8 needs to be addressed.  I've accumulated in excess of 80 essences in there doing full clears of the zone, have finished 2 ucv3 and am over halfway to a 3rd one and I've probably seen less plat bags than I do in a single clear of T6 or T7...not to mention that the plat bags dropping in T8 range from the smallest to largest, so even if you see one it probably won't be a 78k one anyhow.  It'd be nice to set it on the same rate as T7 trash drops and I wouldn't be opposed to getting rid of the original zone trash drops (pages, tradeskill crap, original ToV armor, etc.)

ToFS floors 5+, ToV, T8 weapons, and a variety of new effects are pending replies from Hunter. It's been ~2 weeks. Once Halloween ends and the bossman gets his bearings back from the nightmare with the earthquakes, hopefully additions will continue.


-Hate

I wouldn't be so harsh on the longer repop on T7...if you need the zone to refresh after a clear just /say repop instance and your problem is fixed.  Shouldn't be an issue to have t7 have the same kind of respawn timer as t6...heck I remember it taking 2 days to clear t6 when the content first came out and I didn't have decent strike augs

The difference between T6 and T7 (regarding respawn timers) is that in T6 if you can't clear quickly, you will never be able to get to the end bosses that you need to gear your crew. (If the respawn was as short as T7) In T7 there is no such limitation and the respawn timer reflects that.

Guffaws

Yeah, there's no reason you need to clear the zone to progress, much different than T6.

No you are right.  You don't need to clear the zone to progress BUT once you kill the initial stone droppers...and all of X-mob-type, give an hour or so and then more stone droppers spawn.  So if you are not killing as fast as others do...you will miss those spawn and as a direct result miss the possible named that could spawn as a direct result.  So I can see the issue they are complaining about.

Which is the design of the zone.  Extending the timer on repop would break this design.   To me that is the challenge,  being able to get the right balance of tank/dps/healing to be able to clear relatively quickly and thus get those stone droppers.  Those that are able to clear quick (Your team Raygan  :)  ) have put a lot of time and effort into their teams.  

Yes T7 is challenging and yes it can be very challenging when you first enter.     It will take time to clear T7 and progress.   Again, I believe this is by design.   Not everyone in every mmorpg will be able to progress to end game.   You definitely will not be able to progress without putting in the time.

I rarely clear the zone to its entirety and the majority of my team is flagged for T8.     If someone is struggling clearing 40 mobs and getting a stone dropper then they may not be ready for T7 as a solo team.   I'd suggest teaming up.   If you are still struggling then you may need to retool your squad or rethink your strategy.    
    

I see your point, and very valid it is.   :D

so...what about the other changes i posted about? p

Hulk, I'm going to wait on this as this may be affected with the T8 change and because I'm damn near refusing to remove the only 1-up that knights have. I will adjust Angerbomb to make it more friendly, but giving the tank that is skewing the game for the other tanks another one-up (and the LAST one-up knights have)...I just can't do it.

Don't worry though, I am noting this in my TODO list.



-Hate

What if angry nerds augs were made usable for pal/sk?

Then we all know a certain someone that will want them for a druid.
Not mentioning any names =D

I wouldn't want the AoE on my Pally from Nerds.  Any time I've clicked Dread Gaze with appropriate level content he's gone down in a second and that was with SM pet and KHH

so dont put the nerds aoe on ur pally u dingus - put firestrike instead.

Ok I guess I dont play here enough, I just got my characters all Epic 7.0s and my bard war pally etc etc I cant use their augs now?  All I see is Type 22. And none of my rank5+ augs seem to fit it.

Are we expected to have max augs or something?  yes confused/mad, pretty much cant play atm because of this.

Also, would love for T7 to have a longer repops.. Its annoying as heck trying to track new spawns with the old ones respawning in the middle of everything.  Make it like a day or something.

Yes, only aug IX fits in there. Sorry

Would it be bad if that slot was added to lower level strike augs? I can see how it's going to suck to have to upgrade augs and not have the cash to do it.

Seems like a major error in planning. I do not know why you would keep upgrading character's epics to 7.0s if after the first one you found that the 7.0 has one type 22 aug slot.

It is a good idea to allow lower level augs to fit in slot 22.

That was done as part of the lag reducing fixes that Hunter implemented, instead of 3 procs going off of each weapon there's only one. That's why NS9 is the damage that it is and also why the IS to NS recipe conversion was made. The amount of plat bags that drop in T7 offsets this as well.

Hmm I am all for lag reducing balances... but maybe there can be a middleground that I am too lazy to think of. Why do pets still hit with god speed? I wouldnt mind them hitting harder less often.  If I read forum posts more I wouldnt have upgraded obv.. Strike 9s shouldnt be hard to make so not a big deal.

2 catches. one, you need LP essence ( killing in t7 till you get some). two, anyone who uses NS augs is in for a bumpy upgrade. as in they probably have a NS8, and 2 IS8 in weapon now, the 2 IS can be turned into an NS, but you need 3 NS8 to make a NS9. i imagine will see alot of 7.0's turned in over next few weeks. i know i waited till after Halloween to do it.

This was brought up when T7 came out over a year ago (?). It is not that big a deal really. it slows your progression down a little to make that extra NS aug...but a lot of people did it before you, so have faith that it can be done.  I waited a good long while, with duel wielding NS classes, until Halloween events to finish the NS because I am too cheap to build everything else up and offhand doesn't strike as much as primary.....just a thought you could try.  When I got my first 7.0 (on a pally) I had to go back through and redo the epic because I didn't have the funds at the time to make the FS9.  ;D ...it will be ok just take a deep breath and farm on!

Added a few ideas and modified original post based on some player feedback.