EZ Server

On the Warpath #2

Ladies/Gents/Trolls,

It's time again for the next planned updates thread. This thread consists of things that are on the horizon for the server. Not all of the things on this thread will be 100% as is, and may be subject to change, but you can reliably look here for upcoming changes/additions/removals.

Very Soon:

• Necro "Death" Line Quest Chain added DONE
• Pet Scaling Fixed DONE
• Rebuild Overthere to be PVE Competition REMOVED
• Rebuild/Remove Commons PVP REMOVED
• Earring of the Ages quest/item chain Reimplemented DONE
• Ultimate Weapon Augs
• T7 Efficiency Rewrite DONE
• Buff Bot Reorganization/Condensing DONE
• Zone Dropped Weapons: Regens/Resists/Combat-Stats DONE

On the Horizon:

• Scaling Mini-Dungeons
• Arena-Styled PVE Battles
• T10

---

Very Soon, Detailed:

• DONE - Necromancers should head to the Caster's Guild to check with our Roaming friend.
• DONE - Pets should be significantly more powerful than before in most respects. Those that had Mana Necklace and nothing else should expect a fair drop in damage.
• REMOVED - Rebuild Overthere to be PVE Competition - I really am not fond of it and still don't care for the way it functions. I would like to rebuild it as a PVE challenge that is accessible to everyone instead of MMO-dodgeball. Similar rewards, more chaotic, lots of madness, alternating events (zone wide event is randomized).
• REMOVED - Rebuild/Remove Commons PVP - Similar to the bit above, not totally keen on it as it's basically just 1-3 people trying for the credit and SLS. Not quite what Hunter had planned.
• DONE - The Earring of the Ages quest has been completed. Please see the Keeper of the Ages for more information.
• Ultimate Weapon Augs - Yeah, that's right. I'm actually going to start constructing them, deciding on the effects/click/procs/etc that are worthy. It will take a bit to get them where/how I like them.
• DONE: T7 was rewritten to be significantly faster. The traps were redesigned to be much more "trap" like and less of "Oh I walked by the cart". The chance for bosses/minibosses is the same, but the chance for trash mob ambushes has gone up significantly.
• DONE: The Buff Bot should drop 3-4 spells, level depending. Hunter's Shield, Hunter's Breastplate, Spirit of Wolf, and (assuming 72 or below) Hunter's Arm.
• DONE: Zone dropped weapons should now benefit from new HR additions and better stats distributions.

On the Horizon:

• Scaling Mini-Dungeons - This is part of the newly design expedition system that Akkadius built for the EQEMU community. These will serve similar to TOFS but less grindy and more of a few hour "adventure" with a small lockout.
• Arena-Styled PVE Battles - Think FF7's Golden Saucer Arena meets Borderlands' Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot with an EZ twist.
• T10 - Well....it's gotta happen sometime.

With these threads, the biggest thing that is desired is feedback. If you feel we missed something or if something should be a high(er/est) priority, let us know and explain why. Simply demanding problem XYZ be solved because it annoys you isn't going to work for you.

Previous thread for reference: http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=4197.0


-Hate

You guys are doing such a good job updating the server. Thanks for doing what you do.

Yeah if you rid ourselves of that crappy PVP commons area you could put the 1.0s back to the way they were and the crafted armor to let the newer players enjoy the trip to 70 and potimea instead of Lookin for PL all the time.

This future path of updates sound pretty neat! Can't wait to see them in action !!!

Thanks you two for the speed of this server and content!

Awesome stuff! Quick question though, regarding UW clicks. Most epic augs are clicky effects, although I'm sure 99.9999% of us would gladly trade that socket away to get our UW clicky back in a heartbeat. Would the epic slot have to be removed for a clicky augment to work I'm guessing?

Make war epic slotable in type 8

got offhand..

I, and a few others, fought quite frequently in Commons, and had fun outfitting chars for it. It will be sad to see it go.

These.. sound.. .awesome!

One minor suggestion on a mini-dungeon motif : Make sure there's a minor one designed for players who've hit level 70 but aren't quite to the point of being able to handle Time/Ldon/Qvic/Terrorantula easily.  Maybe stuff like short duration long recast AE aggro / stonewall clickies (like Angerbomb/War 3.5+ click).... Ultra Focus of Healing Pally/cleric clicky (like 4-5x click.. like an oracle 21 or something).. pocket Gife of Annihilation....

But all having super long Lay on Hand type delays so they could only be used once a game day (or even longer).. And either only work in certain zones, or are usable only by levels 72/71 or less... Some kinks would need to be ironed out to avoid abuse...

You know, just something for actually helping kill Terrorantula that first time, Taking down your first qvic boss/time boss.. It's a thought.. it might help with our low level player retention and keep the new blood flowing freely into EZ server.

Or just a low level dungeon with some random drops like CG/FG items, stuff like the Surefall reward quest line with either items or more ways for new players  to get some cash/items..

whew.. that line of thought went on longer than i thought it would.. Keep up the good work! You do an amazing job providing us with content and tweaks! :)

Does this mean your robbing the only player who goes there and farms Gem collector of his joy and give others a chance at it? *gasp* what ever will faceshooter do now? lol

Could always make the Warrior Class Augment 3.0 useable in the range slot, since a lot of us are offhanding it as a SoT replacement. Then we pull with our bow!  :P

what for u need 2x 5.0 or higher ? i got 8.0 in mainhand and 3.0 in offhand that fine becouse didnt cant use double SW

First off, i want to thank Akka, Hate and Love for their hard work keeping this server up in memory of Hunter.

Secondly, i have to admit that i have not bothered to play since UW changes. I spent too much time working on it, for it to become a dps weapon only. I understand that changes were needed  in order to add new Tiers and make it possible for non UW holders to do T8. But understanding and liking something are two diferent things.


Adding UW Augs, now this i dont understand. When you were planing the UW changes, you wanted to keep the UW damage at a 3x or 5x Epic damage. But other players convinced you to keep UW at least as a DPS weapon since its Tanking stats (HP) got greatly decreased.  Now you want to add even more DPS to the UW. Something you wanted to cut short when you started working on UW changes. Never posted about th UW aug before, since i always figured it was a way to shut up all the people whining about their UW clickies being gone.


UW changes are not the only reason i'm not playing anymore. At first it was UW changes, but then changes to resist and spells, kept me away. Again, i understand that either resisting or not made content quite boring. But I had enough to do already 12boxing and most of the time watching TV series or movies at the same time. All i wanted to do is pull, position the mob(s) and kill. If id wanted to be fully concentraded on the game i would be playing something else, not EQ.

Actually.....I rather like the way the UW is now. And as for UW augs....where did it say increased dps? :D

Great roadmap Hate! Thanks for listening to our input here and in game!

Not concerned about increased dps lol, only asking if "clicky" aug is possible with an epic slot in the weapon already.

First bit, thank you! I hope Hunter would be proud of how things are going.

Second, it's still a gigantic leap over the dropped items. It no longer gives a player pure invulnerability in any tier minus top tier or top two tiers. You worked hard for the ultimate weapon. That's what it still is, wildy powerful weapon that allows you to tear things apart. If I forced everyone to farm the UW, then your work/effort for it was not special and essentially was just part of the game.

As for the augs, I never stated that they are specifically damage augs or extra DPS. There will be some clicks that cause damage for sure, but they are the minority. The DPS was an issue initially because I didn't realize how jacked some of the mob hp/damage was. With UW changes completed, the mobs' hp and damage took HUGE hits. In a nutshell, the dps was relatively untouched but the mobs have less health now (in high ends). The UW Augs were not just a cheap attempt at soothing people butthurt about the changes. I did and do mean to put them in play. The effects right now are still "on the drawing board", but I'd like to add a variety of things to make the UWs feel unique/customizable for all the work players have put in to them.

As for the rest, if that's the way you want it, good luck in whatever other game you want to play. Sorry EZ isn't an afk for freeloot server for you anymore. Not trying to be a dick, but if this server is no longer what you want it to be, why keep up and question changes?


-Hate

Epic slot and click slot can co-exist, but I'm not sure how the click precedence would work. It may try to click everything that's up, it may randomly decide which one to set as "the click", or it may error out. I'll test that nearer completion. :-)


-Hate

Loving the changes and loving the server. Just one problem with your opening Hate..

"Ladies/Gents/Trolls,"

There is only 1 Troll and that is Fugi. Let's give credit where credit is due....cuz I am pretty sure I got the 'Ladies' part covered!

Thanks and keep up the awesome job!

Mix

your right mix you are the biggest lady here

That's kind of a dramatic tone to take for perfectly valid view point. Just a few months ago it used to be that you could log in for a few and work on some things a little bit at a time here and there.  Not all of us want to block off 3 or 4 hours at a time in our schedules to work on progression.

So a suggestion for commons/overthere.
IF you want to give the community a bit of chance for pvp then the best way to do that would be to have a specific npc that you talk to that will shroud you down (DoD stuff there) to a specific level with a certain set of gear, make it a class of your choice or the class of your character, and give a bunch of aas we can purchase but not enough points to buy everything so we have to choose what is best. This puts everyone on equal playing fields without having to restrict the armor they have or restrict the levels. This also gives someone new to the server who wants to try it the option to do it.

Still put in the IP restriction and possibly implement a point system that you could get rewards from, not a boss in the zone for people to kill as that has proven not to work at all.

This is just a suggestion and people may not even try it if you implement it but if you give everyone the chance to pvp on equal grounds WITHOUT the chance of getting completely rounded by a proc or something then people might actually do it.  After all, zek still survives on live. Even through all the BS SoE has put that server through and as unbalanced and all the hackers and trainers, the server is still there with at least 100-200 people on it.

PvP has a chance, if done right! But up to you if you want to spend the time on it. Still a lot of other better things you could be doing with the server than catering to a small population of pvpers.

Pet scaling can be seen: http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=4305.msg55189#msg55189


-Hate

Earring of the ___ Ages quest chain completed and item updated.

Be warned, this item is top heavy. Do not expect quick rewards/gains.


-Hate

I know this may seem dense to ask, but I have been gone for months and haven't seen this particular step discussed in detail.  The Keeper is not very forthcoming with info on the Earring.

She says the earring will require a Gemstone so I gave her one with the earring and she handed back both saying she didn't want those things.  When I hand in the earring alone (level 0) she says I need 20k AA.  I am assuming this means I need the Earring, the Gemstone AND 20k AA in order to upgrade to rank 1?

Related sort of thing on the epic augs and the Epic vendor.  When you have done it once you don't need the steps, but blowing it once on an 8.0 is a lesson I don't relish learning...  Can you hand the epic vendor a 2H Aug and receive a 1H in return?

Lol yeah i noticed that too. She tells you to give her 20k AA AND the Gemstone per rank. I thought the Gemstone was going to be a free rank if you found one, not required for every rank  :P

hm as far as I heard the Gemstone of Ages drops a lot in HoH or Anguish also in lower tiers, I have seen only 1 in 2 weeks time in T9. Is that expected that the high lvl players have go back in the lower tiers to upgrade the earring?

my guess is the number of mobs pulled per Hour in t9 is not as great as lower tiers so rightly so seems they drop more in lower tiers

Most people that are in T9 (maybe some exceptions) pull trains the entire time that they are there.   20-30 mobs.   Some of the events pull trains for you, so bonus.     

Mobs pulled per hour, not how many mobs you can pull. There's a reason 90% of the Gemstones were found in HoH in the test thread   ;D Anyways, the tiers where you farm HUGE amounts of mobs nonstop that die in one hit are dropping rainbow crystals like crazy, and now Gemstones are tacked on to that list. I agree with Brunaa. But, by the time I get ROA 800+ on my team and my mask to 300+ and even consider working on the Earring of Bad-stats-until-you-put-500kAAs-and-25-Gemstones-into-it I might have some of the Gemstones... But we'll mainly be forced to buy them from the other players that are years away from doing the Ear.

Hate, I think i read that you took the backstab mod off weapons for rogues and left it on the epic it self. Im still seeing it on the t8 weapon though.

I for one like the current drop rate ... maybe there will be some sort of eco again

Updates made to initial list.


-Hate