EZ Server

After debating front and back in OOC about this. I decided to bring it out on forum for everyone to join in and for Akka to read.

Right now, Insane Goblin is "mandatory" for all tanks to have when they reach T9 and up. I can't think of what it will be like to tank T10 without IG. The thing is, you have 1 week out of 52 to farm it. That it, there's no alternate to get SW pet outside of Halloween from my understanding.

So as we discussed in the OOC, couple of the ideas that stood out.

1 - Spread out the Halloween pets to cover 12 months. Such as one pet per month. Lets say put Angry Face or similar pet for April and Insane Goblin for Halloween. That way you have 6 months between to obtain one or other for your tank.

2 - Create a new pet, weaker than Angry Face (15%)/Insane Goblin (17%), Let's put 10% SW for this one. And is obtainable through new contents? Expedition? New quest in T8/T9?

You could put it in the new expedition and have it a rare drop. So that way we have additional reason to farm the said expedition. Or you could add new quest line in T8/T9.

IMO it should be obtainable for T8/T9 players and not below. Because that's where your tank will start seeing large spike in oncoming damages.


Any other suggestion/idea/thought?


P.S. - By "mandatory" as in you definitely want to have it to smooth out the damage spike. But not need it. I don't know about T10 yet.

I really liked Hate's idea about changing mitigation so that pet's weren't "mandatory". It would have changed things so that dps classes could use angryface or MoF pets and not HAVE to use IG pets in t10....I have different pets on all my toons but only us IG pet because it is pointless to keep switching between pets for different content. ...to me anyway

I'd be all for people obtaining mitigation pets through normal play.  The one stipulation I'd make is that they have the stonewall effect but at a sacrifice, so without actually looking at the pets because I'm posting from work, say you can get an SM alternative pet with equal stonewall but an appreciable amount of negative stats...maybe a negative % hp or some arbitrary flat rate along with some resistance hits for placebo because it's incredibly easy to get enough resists to blow through any content now.  This way the Halloween pets can retain their unique item status and be what people wait 11 months a year for but tanks can still obtain the mitigation tradeoff for some negative stats that will still benefit them far more than the current setup.

There was much debate on this topic a few months back. The bottom line was "stonewalls are out of control and both Halloween pets would eventually have their stonewalls removed along with a heavy re-balancing of mob output damage." Not sure what the plans are as of now, but the fact warriors can reach 88% stonewall threw up a much larger red flag than the pets having limited availability.

T10 was built to still be a challenge for those who had spent years in T9. That means that it was tuned to be a challenge for those with every optional upgrade. Max stonewall, multiple ultimate weapons, and multiple groups for max dps/buffs. The stonewall nerf was also already being planned when he was setting up t10. T10 wasn't setup to be something you could break into once you had finished up your T9 armor. I don't know if Akka wants to change how its setup, but as it stands now you might end up needing to take the time to grab those optional upgrades.

  While i do agree with the bit about T10 being tuned for difficulty concerning people who had been farming t9/SoA/UW/EoA etc for damn near ever, and that you shouldnt just be able to waltz in there upon getting flagged from t9 the idea that something you basically NEED to do it having a literal TIME limit on it sucks.  UWs?  Can knock em out as quick as you can farm essences if you have a lot of time to play.  Same thing for anything else in that list.  I don't think a t10 nerf is necessary or even a remotely good idea.  But the idea of having everything else ready to go and that extra 11% dmg mit holding you back from progressing..meh.  "WELP Im ready to go...in 5..6..7..8 whatever more months".

Just as Darinow said. I can take my time to max out UW, Shield, Earring, Ring, whatever.

But I can't do anything if the item I want is 5 months away from now.

Sure I could take a break until Halloween event, but no promises that I'll remember to log on the event week and grab it.

If I forgot to log on after 5 months break. Well that's a year long waiting for next event.

Regardless of what anyone said, I'm type of player that have to have whatever items that will help out with my progression. If I can't do anything but wait for one glorious week, well...Fuck this, fuck that, fuck everything! :D I'd go nut!

I'm completely fine with cosmetic items being on limited time events. But important items that benefit the progression? That's just too much.

Hopefully T10 doesn't get made easier and a alternate for IG does come since I don't have one yet but thank god I'm done with all my armor in there and if not I can wait the 5 months. No big deal. The game isn't going anywhere.

But anyone that wants to do T10, you gotta back farm alot. Getting at least 4 UW's and enough healing power, at least 1 earring on your tank, otherwise you're not going to be killing shit.

I've actually thought about this idea many times in the past and while it doesn't seem fair that xyz people already have it and new players don't, the other shoe drops and I think about the Halloween events I've done.

History lesson:

Halloween for Hunter was better than Christmas for most. The man went bonkers during that entire week, nothing was off limits. Pranks, jokes, double loot all week, everything. For those among us that did not experience a "Hunter" Halloween I am truly sorry.

That being said, those items and there are a lot more than just the pets, should remain with that holiday. Fact of the matter is every salty dog on the server tries to make sure that anyone that is online gets the pet and other items out of a sense of community. Basically you just have to be online.

That may sound cold and elitist but there's also a number of other things in the game that fall into this category.

Just my opinion

Tend to agree with Rent on this one. We all had to wait for these.

I get you, Rent. It's like that for every other MMOs. There are special events and people tends to miss out when they join in later.

For Warcraft. I wasn't around for Ahn'Qiraj opening, when players trained world bosses to main cities, or when zombie infection spread through Azeroth and causing huge outrage among players.

Hell of stories I love to listen, it happened and I wasn't there. Not much I can do about it. None of the items they offered affect the progression. All cosmetic.

IG on other hand is something you want to have for progression and it doesn't sit well with me that it's on extreme time limited event.  Which is why I'm asking for possibility of alternate option for all new tanks (or old tanks that missed the event) to have so they don't have to wait month to year for one item. A weaker version of IG. Like 10% SW. Just something to help out the tanks that doesn't have IG until Halloween event come around for best SW pet to max out their overall SW.

Or maybe push the plan to reduce the SW and make IG less desirable so we wouldn't have to wait for 51 weeks. That and players with IGs can use other pets that are more suitable for different roles instead of flat 17% mit.

Which is why items with the stonewall effect would have penalty stats attached to them, Halloween pets would still be superior but your ability to match tanking sustainability with everyone else wouldn't be an impossibility outside of 1 week a year.

I'm hardly ever in the 'thru snow uphill both ways twice and we liked it!" camp, but yeah, halloween pets should be halloween only.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut........

every once in a great while Halloween randomly hits in, say, July, for a couple days.

That would be the thing to hope for, not some new-fangled coding nightmare.

This -

Halloween on EZ isn't 100% limited to October...you just have to be on at the right time...at the right time.

Back when Hunter was around, he'd toss it on for the hell of it sometimes, and I think Akka has done it a couple times too...he's just gotta be in a super good mood or something has to go wrong with the server i think :p

Only problem I see with this is that people would start complaining that it's only twice a year....you would hit the same ceiling again, eventually. Maybe lower the price of Halloween pets by half on rewards vendor? Just a thought.

also note there is the 15% stone wall pet that is half the price of ig. tho i do agree on halfing both there cost

I can work with lowering the EZ price on those. :P

But my suggestion still stand, because I believe there should be compromise for us tanks without one for high-end progression push. Also because not everyone can afford to drop that much of cash.

a fun quest (like pet sword or pet summon bag) would be pretty cool for tank to get a pet like the ig even a 10 or 12 for t9 then a 13 or 15 that you get in t10

(tho im only up to t7 so not sure how it really effecfts t9/t10)

Yeah, we definitely could use more quests to shift the balance with grind.

I'm only T6/7 so I don't know how much of a difference the IG pet makes at upper tiers, but I find at this level i'm more limited by DPS than I am by tanking ability.  I can make pretty decent sized pulls and stay up with my pally heals but if I could kill faster I think that would be more useful than additional stonewall.

Anyways like I said i'm only T6/7 so I don't know if i'm even in the same ballpark as those doing like T9.

I also wanted to test my magelo signature, lol!

You'll see big damage spike starting in T8 and it will only get worse as you go up.

Back in the day you usually have to have UW by the time you hit T7+ so that may be answer to your DPS problem.

However with post-nerf, I'm capable of killing T8 and T9 with strikes alone. 9 Boxes, mind you.

T9 is just so damn rough on my tank so I gotta be more careful with what I pull. DPS wasn't issues. And from what I heard, T10 mobs are hitting in 2-3 million damage range. You going want to have your tank prepared for that.

The actual progression to T10 goes like this....

T9 > T9.3 > T9.6 > T9.9 > T10

cause it doesn't fall in line with just I can storm roll T9 now I'm going to do good in T10

LoL

Rent is a poopy face.