EZ Server

Preface:

As I mentioned in my long-winded introduction in the Labor Day Weekend post Akkadius put up, I plan to be as open as possible with everyone, including about upcoming changes that may not be popular, regardless of how difficult the conversation may be. Understand, I don't relish queueing up nerfs for everything, and that's not at all what I want to do, but there exists some unbalancing items on EZ Server, and openly discussing them seems the best way forward. If you want to participate in this conversation, or help with testing, do it in a constructive manner. Nothing is yet set in stone, and the reason for this conversation is to see how the server lies with the issue I'm seeing.


Current Topic:  Ignore Death Ultimate Augment

For those unfamiliar with it, this is it:

(https://i.imgur.com/OwHYaWR.jpg)

Now, the issue with this augment, as you can see, is that it causes the player to resist 100% of spells, and increase Dodge by 10,000%. Now, this isn't necessarily overpowering on your Shaman or Magician, but on classes like Rogue, Monk and Ranger it makes them able to easily  solo Kerafyrm, Warders, and almost anything other than NPC's with unresistable spells, including being able to zone pull Sunderock. I have no issue with people choosing to use non-standard classes as their main (which on EZ is pretty much any class but Warrior), and people have used this augment to it's fullest potential, but similar to Guardian Charm, it's a little out of whack. I think that people could agree in principle to the fact that a Ranger, Rogue or Monk shouldn't be able to turn the current end-zone boss into a 3 second fight and another 30 seconds to clean up all Guardian spawns at once. I realize that people have been finding non-standard ways to kill bosses since EQ was released, but this isn't necessarily cleverly using an ability, or precisely timed AA's, it's pretty much a run in with a riposte ability on, augment procs, and stuff dies.

Problem & Solutions:

So the problem for me, is that this type of near invulnerability item presents substantial problems when designing spell heavy encounters. Yes, I could set everything unresistable, or simply damage the character directly from a script and bypass the augment altogether, but what I would prefer to do is come up with a reasonable modification to it, such that it's not a near 100% invulnerability. So, along these lines, I have done some limited testing with someone who prefers to main a non-tank character, and has used this augment to great effect. I won't out anyone here publicly, as if there is strong reactions, I will take the brunt of that. So solutions we initially brainstormed were, as mentioned, unresistable spells, adds spawning behind the character(as dodge doesn't work from the back, and RNG/ROG/MNK aren't surviving back shots for long), or similar modifications/additions to encounters to specifically address this augment. We also talked about reducing proc rate/buff duration, however that also would heavily neuter the item, as even a short downtime meant death in my testing. What we ended up testing together, was reducing the chance to resist percentage from 100%, down to 95, 90, 85 and 80%. This avenue seemed the most promising. In my own testing, and his, we both were able to still solo what he was soloing before, but the odds of success weren't 99.9% as before, and there was at least some suspense in the fights.

Feedback:

Understand, absolutely nothing about this is set in stone. If the vast majority of people want it left alone, and work encounters around it, then that's fine with me, but it would end up feeling very nerfed in new zones. If anyone has a different idea, or constructive feedback, let's hear it!  I can make changes on Test server, and people can freely come try it out (on old content, you don't get to see my new zone yet :-*) and we can modify until we get a general consensus, or at least minimal nerd rage.

This isn't happening overnight, Ignore Death changes, if any, won't come for months most likely, so don't get too worked up.

-Draca

It's honestly an overdue nerf just like the guardian. My belief is that this was an aug made to allow your alts to survive when you were woopin up in a group setting in T10+.

The intent if the aug was definitely not to increase tankability of non tank classes but survivability. Just put a condition check on the buff, each pulse check if the character has agro...if buff is up and character has agro set duration to -1 and the buff fades.

As far as guardian charm, it was a broken effect on purpose.  Once you got the first ultimate charm it worked as intended. The problem was during dev transition, much like the cleric self vie buff, it was reported as broken and incorrectly enabled without addressing why it was never intended to work or be used that way in the first place.

This is an interesting topic..

Yes on one side a rogue, monk, ranger (sorry falcon) shouldnt be able to solo zp SR but they really should be able to (easily) solo single boss mobs (if they got the right gear). Because this is their USP. And it should stay this way.

Every class should have its purpose in game. Right now 90% of all classes are useless IMO. This should be fixed first…

In another step there should be fixes to other items. UCs are useless right now, almost all UW are useless (because most classes are useless).

It doesnt make sense to me that an UC does not have the abilities of all 4 single charms combined. That is why every warrior uses a guardian charm. If the vampiric effect would be included in UCs you could easily scale up the % of the effect with every level of UC. So it would actually make sense to do this quest. Same goes for the other abilities that help other classes.

It should be a goal of the game to have several classes „maxed out“ to do several things in the game.

And if a rogue or monk or even a ranger (sorry again falcon) is „maxed out“ why shouldnt he/she be able to destroy single boss mobs in t10.5? Why should a warrior or sk not be able to TANK a whole zone while a necro or wizard will do a massive aoe strike (or 2-3) that kills almost everything?

Would've been nice to see stuff fixed instead of just nerfing everything we've worked out we can take advantage of without exploiting in anyway....

Tank

I may get poo'd on (especially because I main a Rogue that uses Ignore Death heavily for things like ZPs), but Ignore Death was clearly an augment to help people survive who are not tanking, mainly from things like AoE when the tank pulls a group of mobs. With EQ's limitations, it may be impossible/very difficult to code, but having it not be a proc and instead 100% uptime effective when equipped, but only works against targets that are not targeting you could make the augment still prove 100% effective in its intended scenario, while 0% effective in its unintended scenario.

It's unfortunate that an item like this receives any kind of nerf after being functional this way for such an immense amount of time though. Things have been set in a certain way for so long that I'd worry nerfs, even though they're deserved, could scare people away. You could always go the route you mentioned of simply leaving it unchanged in current content and building around it in future content.

I am not commenting on anything in particular, but these are exactly the conversations that the active player base must engage in, so that I know what people feel on a given topic. I completely understand that nerfing items that have been one way for a long time isn't a good feeling for people who rely on them, but I appreciate that those same people understand the overpowered nature of the item, or that it's being used in an unintended way, thus becoming unintentionally overpowered. Again, I have made no decision on this, I've only begun with some fact finding testing, and engaged some interested parties to get their feedback. Please, continue the discussion, or provide your constructive feedback.

-Draca

Focus Augment for Tank class would be nice like the thorny one always hated seen that empty slot ;p

i can unterstand the nerf need of that augment but no clue what really would work well ... maybe shorter uptime or higher procrate !!!

Tweaking I would agree is needed as nothing is 100%.

Dimur's suggestion of agro i dont think would work however-
-if the idea was that a support class would stay alive because of this aug
-then they get agro and live because of this aug
- but agro makes the buff drop... then your dead no matter what.  
I understand surviving rampage or aoe spells but if the mob turns on you and the buff drops your probably dead.

The main issue I think is like Zen said, the server has been using the tools and items as it sat for a long time which will cause a stir as things change, Good or Bad.

We all enjoyed figuring out the parts and pieces of this server and now, minus the new players, are just farming up extra toons or helping new guys.

So we must work at the balance of "hey just make a rogue and no other characters" and holy crap my prize toon is now a shelf toon due to nerf.

Whats the goal?

Are we trying to make people play multiple toons?  There is a lot of fixing that will be needed to make that work well- Try to heal a T10.5 warrior with a healing class and stay alive (just an example i know you can do it with work)

Are we trying to make it harder?  Does the existing player base who has defeated the content want to do it again cause its harder? probably not

Are we trying to build new content that requires new things or negates old things?  Zens example of making new content around existing items

Do we make them legacy items that fade with the changing of the player base?  Make a 2.0 ID that changes the item but legacy the 1.0 that exists?  Manastone Guise of Deceiver?

I like the idea of modifying the UCs to incorporate the base charms better, always thought it was odd to have a Ultimate anything that isnt just that haha.

I am a boxer at heart but it would take me time to wrap my head around using/needing a full group on EZ anymore.  Not a complaint just a statement of fact that i think most existing players will echo.

Just a couple more questions to inspire the conversation.

-Slippz/Tankmeout

That seems pretty OP :D

This augment is op as shit lol just got it on rogue. Can you make mobs cast a stun that cannot be resisted? If stunned then cant dodge right? Not sure if that mechanic holds up in eq.

Thanks!

Lol funny post

Zerker can use ID aswell

youre right i overlooked that oops. i didnt mean for the rest of it to be funny i thought it might be a way to fix a problem

Rogues and monks face tank end content and zone pulling T10...
I guess I'd dig it if it was due to use of clever mechanics, buffs and heals. This just seems cheap and is obviously not as intended.

The reason for this item was to increase the likelyhood of your damage dealers (melee range classes) to survive a battle with short bursts of gaining agro, eating rampage etc.. The idea behind this is good, which anyone with 15++ toons will know. Ressing tons of toons after each fight gets old very fast, and you end up just making 5 warriors like I did and park the rest in the background.

I don't mind dps classes being able to solo or zp previous content (trivial stuff), but new content, no. Balancing this item depends a lot on how the new tier will work. What style will the tier have and so on. If we want T11 to be a zone where you focus mainly on one mob at the time or if there will be many mobs to be fought at the same time. All this has to be taken into account to balance the item most effectively in my opinion. As I understand the reason for the topic, some items needs to be tuned to make a better and more challenging experience for new tiers and also making it easier for developers to create the content.

I'm sure there are manyclever ways to balance it, but end line is this seems wrong and it's not how the item was intended to work. It may suck if some are depending on it now, but I dare say it doesn't take too long to adapt by doing some changes.

In my opinion it's great that we actually have a "watching eye" that can monitor the server and balance/change things if they are not working as intended or if they create huge obstacles for devs when developing new content. Just means we have someone that is dedicated to keep the server alive :)

I agree with everything sarthin mentioned. I think if you reduced the dodge percent from 100 to 50% or even 25% that would allow the well geared players to still be able to tank near current content though appropriately not as well as when it was 100%. Also I think considering removing the mechanics that cause the ae damage leading to near sudden alt death and mass rez after each pull would be addressing the core issue. It seemed to me as a newer player the server was very box friendly until you get to t10 at which point you just solo on your warrior especially when breaking in.  I dont mean to go off topic too much but I think this augment and t10 ae kill all your alts go hand in hand.

How about instead of the 10,000% dodge, you give it melee mitigation (in the same spell slot as warrior epic (Slot 5))? Warrior has 50%, so 30% or so? That would give more survivability without being basically invulnerable. And on the resist part, maybe make that mitigation as well instead of full resist? Percentages could be adjusted easily with some testing, and I'm sure you'd have some volunteers for that.

i think this is a good idea. You could start at a lower % mitigation and have players work up to 30% through upgrades too