Ultimate Weapon Discussion

[Guest]

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever

Login with username, password and session length

Getting Started

Rules

Character Mover

Optimization Guide

EZ Wiki

EZ Guide

Magelo

Zone List

Spell Recipes

T10.5 Spell Recipes

Crafting Recipes

Donate

EZ Player Discord

[EZ Server Files]

EZ Server Files

EZ Client Downloads

Custom UF MiniMap

Custom UF Inventory

EQEmu Server Status

EQEmulator Home

Allakhazam Home

UFMissingFilesList

TwitchTV

[clbreastmilk]

My views are very much in line with Dim, I couldn't have said it better. 

HP = No

DPS = Yes

Fix server + Keep some value of UW.

[hateborne]

Xiggie, don't worry. I'm here to help keep Hunter's virtual sandbox going as long as humanly possible while continuing to deliver a (free) good time.

Dimur, excellent post. :-D


Keep it flowing! No changes will happen for a few weeks. I'm not going to surprise you with a nerf or ninja-nerf this. Everything be will VERY transparent and VERY open.


-Hate

[Sutiea]

Here's my somewhat unique opinion on the UW:

I was a hardcore EQ'er 10 years ago on live... the kind of player that played for 14 hours a day, every day, for years.  Had the best gear, had full AAXP when expansions were released, and an elitist attitude to match.  If there was an item that required a LOOONG camp that was as 'game-breaking' as Verant / Sony allowed in game, I probably owned it.

What irked me back then was entitlement.  By that, I mean the endless threads and posts from people who wanted everything... wanted their epics, wanted gear that scaled better for raid gear, wanted AAXP nerfed, wanted flagged/keyed zones unlocked because "they paid full price for the game just like everyone else and wanted the entire product".  And who wanted all this?  The people with families, the people with FT jobs, the people who just played for fun because they had a life and liked to escape for an hour or two a day.

...lol, and you had folks like me: sitting back, getting angry over SOE catering to this crowd of "slackers" by nerfing this and nerfing that...shaking my head, screaming to simply pay your dues and you can indeed have it all.  But don't think for a second you're getting the same pixels as I get by playing 1/7 of the time I did.  It pissed me off to no end to see my time and effort minimized patch after patch.

Years later, I still feel that way.  I still feel that, here on EZ, the best items should never be close to accessible by the casuals...and that the difference between the best and the rest should be significant.
-
-
-
-
-
Only problem (personally) is that I'm now, 10 years later, that casual player.  I don't deserve an UW and will never have one, and that's fine.  But I'm still an elitist, if that makes sense!

Long story short:  I'm on team UW.  Don't nerf the UW, for God's sake... keep them amazing, to reward the players who put in their time (very long time), and ignore the entitled, unwashed masses.

Thanks for listening~

[marxist]

I still feel that no more ranks of uw should be made, if you want to lower hp, fine, but leave dmg as is.  Find new quests/items in t10 to grind out that are less gamebreaking. This gets you a pretty sick dps weapon that will likely never be replaced, and you can stop balancing content around it.  No future time is put into the weapon as there aren't future ranks, and people if they want can go back and farm them up still.

** Lowering dps doesn't make much sense to me since you can just box 3-4 groups of toons with max augs with the essences it takes to make the weapon.  Better for the server and player to consolidate the resources on a single character

[Expletus]

I am proof that a casual player can obtain an UW. It has taken me close to a year to get up to an 8. Nothing wrong with that, I just didn't prioritize my gaming time towards that until recently. I am suffering now trying to catch up with my strike augs and SoA. That is totally my fault but it's the path I chose.

[hateborne]

Here's my somewhat unique opinion on the UW:

I was a hardcore EQ'er 10 years ago on live... the kind of player that played for 14 hours a day, every day, for years.  Had the best gear, had full AAXP when expansions were released, and an elitist attitude to match.  If there was an item that required a LOOONG camp that was as 'game-breaking' as Verant / Sony allowed in game, I probably owned it.

What irked me back then was entitlement.  By that, I mean the endless threads and posts from people who wanted everything... wanted their epics, wanted gear that scaled better for raid gear, wanted AAXP nerfed, wanted flagged/keyed zones unlocked because "they paid full price for the game just like everyone else and wanted the entire product".  And who wanted all this?  The people with families, the people with FT jobs, the people who just played for fun because they had a life and liked to escape for an hour or two a day.

...lol, and you had folks like me: sitting back, getting angry over SOE catering to this crowd of "slackers" by nerfing this and nerfing that...shaking my head, screaming to simply pay your dues and you can indeed have it all.  But don't think for a second you're getting the same pixels as I get by playing 1/7 of the time I did.  It pissed me off to no end to see my time and effort minimized patch after patch.

Years later, I still feel that way.  I still feel that, here on EZ, the best items should never be close to accessible by the casuals...and that the difference between the best and the rest should be significant.

Only problem (personally) is that I'm now, 10 years later, that casual player.  I don't deserve an UW and will never have one, and that's fine.  But I'm still an elitist, if that makes sense!

Long story short:  I'm on team UW.  Don't nerf the UW, for God's sake... keep them amazing, to reward the players who put in their time (very long time), and ignore the entitled, unwashed masses.

Hell of a first post :-)

While I generally support the "If you want it, work for it" mentality, this isn't really on that level. This comes down to us not having a full team to develop MANY raid zones that allow players to grind their way up in alternate ways. If the UW were owned by just a few and not 1/3 of the player base, that would be a totally reasonable to allow them to stay. As Dimur and I have pointed out earlier in this thread, EZ's progression system is currently more jacked than ever. I will be building some "epic" items that are truly worth of the name in due time. These will be the "HOLY SH** IT'S A <epicnamegoeshere>" type of thing with a large reliance on chance and farming (think Raster, across numerous zones, not designed by satan...err SoE).

I still feel that no more ranks of uw should be made, if you want to lower hp, fine, but leave dmg as is.  Find new quests/items in t10 to grind out that are less gamebreaking. This gets you a pretty sick dps weapon that will likely never be replaced, and you can stop balancing content around it.  No future time is put into the weapon as there aren't future ranks, and people if they want can go back and farm them up still.

** Lowering dps doesn't make much sense to me since you can just box 3-4 groups of toons with max augs with the essences it takes to make the weapon.  Better for the server and player to consolidate the resources on a single character

Marxist,

The UW will still be VERY powerful. The white damage is coming down because it's a bit awkward given the highly curious nature of white damage as a whole on this server. Hell, because of the UWs, most people see the new zone dropped items (toting 2-3x their original white damage) and considering it crap because it isn't in the 10s or 100s of thousands like the UW. The proc for each weapon is going to stay damn powerful. The formula is below:

Matching tier Ninjastrike DMG * X = Proc DMG

The "X" will be the weapon's modifier. The bow/sword will likely have the largest proc, followed by the mace, and ending with the dagger. The staff may act a dual item (2hb melee or 2hb caster, depending on augs), but that remains to be determined (need more time to play accountant).



Hope that made sense :-)


-Hate

[red2]

just got home, read through the currently 3 pages of this. do not need to rephrase what Dimur and Stone have said, but i agree with it.  Some considerations:
1. UW 8,9,10 take a long time. i work full time, and it took me 8 months of doing nothing but farming for UW.


2. I agree at a minimum that the hp should come down, as long as thr hp on t7+ mobs comes down as well. Starting point would be to cap it at about 1m hp.


3. white damage should be left mostly alone, or if you must, reduce it by x amount, increase the proc by 1.5 amount some number to not feel like you are losing out.


4. As is, there is not a way to balance t8+ around the haves and have-not's. but there should be some consideration for the people who have dumped massive amounts of time into it, they should be able to roll over content faster. that was one of the ideas in creation from the start. we all know DPS is just a function of time invested in your bot army. more toons + more Strike augs = more dps. as such, leave the total damage alone or nearly untouched. this could could include lowering white and upping the aug damage, and/or adding in hp/dps/other augs into the other slots.


5. consider moving away form regular essences as the main ingredient. For example, have several different colored stones that are just for UW that drop in certian now tier zones, cold even be that is all those zone are used for ( like the POP zones POI, poa, pow, etc?) that way UW and strike augs are decoupled. strike augs are difficult enough for new players, this should make them a little easier to farm. Or have the color stones drop in same zones, this would help out everyone, similar to how the old way ROA helped new players progress to 70.


6. if it is to be made something like just 3x of tier epic i too want a FULL refund of components, as i would want to make more toons to replace lost damage.

tldr: lower HP, keep dps, decouple from essence.

 

[Raygan]

T7 is doable w/o UW...I finished everything in t7 with just a regular epic...t8 was where UW became a must.

[Drep]

T7 is doable w/o UW...I finished everything in t7 with just a regular epic...t8 was where UW became a must.

T7 is more than doable without a UW.   I just finished t7 with my warrior (working on the rest of my solo group now).     I have full t7 armor, soa 30, roa 198 and only 2 lvl 10 leaf's.   My hp's sit at 1,042,137 as im looking at it now missing just couple buffs.     That is pretty crazy vrs a single weapon that already had more hp's.

If any of you remember my drunken rants (and yes, i usually always wait until i'm drunk to bitch  ),
I was firmly against the game breaking of the UW.   I've been progressing as fast as I can as a casual using everything except a UW.    

Now knowing that I would be screwed come t8.  About 4-5 months ago I started grinding as much as I could for the UW.   I have essences banked for the 1st 4 tiers now and been trying to make money to just make 1 of them.    Money isn't as fast to come by as those who have multiple groups or a UW already.      15-30 minutes of clearing abyss with a UW compares to our 3-4 hours to make the same 650k-1mil for clearing it all.   and then after that one clear it's usually bed time or kid time.  

If the UW is nerfed but stays in the range of what you listed in your For Example section...I would totally keep grinding for it.   I think that idea is awesome and keeps it from being game breaking.    Nerfing it down some like that too and leaving the quest semi the same makes it to where no one can really complain.   If the quest was put back to where it was before the quest was nerfed by adding all the extra things needed, then no one can really complain.   The new folks would have it the same as the old folks.    The only difference would be slightly less hp's and damage.   Nothing would get too much easier and in the end folks would still have the weapon able to smash content but at a slightly slower pace.

[Walls]

I think a problem statement should be created.

[Gannicus]

I'll stick with what I suggested before that I think would fix the UW. DOCK the hp on the thing. It can stay at the 1mil or whatever it is at now but after that raise it by 500k, not double the hp. The DPS on it is fine, that would be my breaking point on the time invested is for the dps to be docked. Otherwise the investment could've been else where in pushing more groups. I liked the damage on it so I pushed forward to work on it because I liked the idea of having a serious amount of dmg on my warrior so I didn't have to build an entire second or third group to have the same dps output.

After the current tiers out this has probably been said start working on benefits to using it besides stats, my example previously was something like you can put in a lot of time and get an aug for the UW that would allow a sort of paladin epic proc to make it unique in it's own way and still an edge up. If you stopped upgrading white damage and hp after the current ranks and docking the hp on current ranks to the 1mil system at 9 is it? And adding 500k hp each rank instead of doubling it you'd be going somewhere with the UW. Docking white damage to me seems like it'd then make it an incredibly un wanted item and the people who invested their time into that feeling screwed in the end.

[Hulkpunch]

do what dimurwar said 

[Ponzi]

This might be the most civil discussion i've ever seen on these boards  .

Lots of excellent points, i'll add my 2 cents from a t5er whom, while i haven't started my UW yet, has spent a boatload of time in side progression gearing up to 1500 resists on my main group and filling out all my UCs and strike 7s, etc.

100 dragon minors.

Just let that sink in for a second. 100 dragon minors. Thats insane. Thats ridiculous, and that comes in the laggiest side of the laggiest zone on the server, which limits your killing speed on spaced-out mobs even the average level 72 can one-shot. It's a complete and utter time sink with zero side benefit.

And there in lies the issue: Many parts of this quest are complete time sinks with zero chance for multitasking. You are literally giving up hours of your life for the simple purpose of having a super amazing doggy-whacker that will give you huge hps and enough dps to reduce your need to play barbie with an extra 6 to 12 toons that would be needed to match the eventual UW9+ dps output. Hell you can even argue its a happy thing for the server in that the less bots needed, the smoother things run in the first place, even factoring in the screaming fast new host/software we've been blessed with via akk, crab, & co.

Multi task is the name of the game. TOFS essences? fine, we still can grind plat, up resists. and finish out ultimate charms in those places. Gods Essences? Sure, once again, v2 charms and plat are involved there, too.

And so on and so forth. As someone with a degree in economics and game theory, i get as much of a rush as I'm logging in my toons deciding how *best* to spend my few precious hours of 'me time' on EZ than i do actually whacking things and looting corpses.

Here's the real issue with the UW:

Essence of Norrath:

Total waste of effing time. period. It's a complete time sink and hours shaved off your life expectancy. NEXT.

Essence of Platinum:

Many ways to grind plat and still benefit your toons doing things you might otherwise be doing, but you are taking away from your strike augs and shield of ages and such by sucking all your plat into EoPs, whatever. Not as bad as... ummm.. oh yeah---

Superior Light Stones:

The essence of suck on EZ. I'm a complete animal when it comes to farming these for strike augs, and good gravy its a total waste of effort. No charms, no resists, no gear.. I mean, until there is a gloves of rallos zek/aquamarine/peridot quest that nets fantastic resulting gear.. Its once again hours shaved off your life in the name of acquiring ultimate doggy-whacker. And it uses a resource you are already using for almost everything else worth having (SoA/Strikes/etc). Above all else, this should probably be changed to another form of currency acquisition (blood of coral or something.. who knows.. just a change of scenery? I digress, getting far off point.)

And Essences!

Cazic Thule, Qvic, Postorms. None offer any real form of substantial platinum gains, people seeking UW are generally far beyond having toons that need the armors that drop, and none are in a zone where multi-boxing even speeds up the process. I've found qvic and CT essences to drop decently enough that its just an annoying time sink... but it brings me back to my original point:

100 dragon minors. Holy smokes.

Getting 100 of anything in a zone that lags to high hell and offers you no other reason to be there is rough. If i managed that and then got the LAPD treatment from a nerf bat, you'd see me at the top of a watchtower w/ a rifle on the six o clock news.

Amazed you folks are so civil, it's commendable.

In summation: we live to multi-task. If it was possible to look at ways to make the farming (not necessarily pop up only in t6/t7 type places where we'd be anyway) at least have multi-tasking progression value, you could see an easier compromise mission statement to be made and examined.

But what i see in this thread are a lot of good people who have spent an unholy amount of time *not progressing* in any measurable way for the sake of acquiring a UW. That truly has to be respected (and i'm not saying you do not respect it Hate, it's quite obvious you do. The existence of this thread is proof of that, I'm just spelling out the investment.)

I don't have the magical answer to what to do about UW (nor should i really, I don't yet have a dog in the fight!).  But i find it kinda hard to believe on a server where the high end is comprised of pretty hardcore dudes that there's going to be a lot of people willing to grind a 6-12box to T8/T9 and are going to say 'Best weapon out there? screw it, i don't want it". Strike Augs and Reward Items aren't technically "necessary" for max progression, but content is tuned around them, too. There isn't a need for a shallow end on the EZ swimming pool-- anyone that far along is going to want and grind a UW and the problem will likely solve itself.

Here's another way to look at it: Is there really an amazing item you could put in the database that the end-gamers wouldn't both a.) desire and b. ) work toward? And if we're handing out trophies based solely on hours /played... Those side non-progression hours (ok months) spent still add up as if they were in Anguish and Loping Plains and Tofs bettering their toons in some other way.

Heck you might even argue that any time Hateborne spends developing end-game content without the UW in mind is time wasted. And any *significant* nerf to UW in the name of balancing content is also an iffy proposition-- its supposed to be game breaking. /shrug

[Expletus]

100 dragon minors is nothing. The real pain is the god majors. After that the rest is a cake walk.

[Takishi]

Last double loot - I farmed up 100 dragon majors , 100 god minors and 120 god majors. In 80ish crystals, I got 3 dragon minors.  RNG may have been playing tricks, but that has been the only thing keeping me from making another UW right now.

Advanced search

• Unable to log in by Chieftan [November 23, 2024, 07:04:51 am]
• Everquest Tweaks and Sett... by Pubis [November 18, 2024, 11:18:15 am]
• Broken Stuff Repair Shop ... by Draca [November 12, 2024, 08:47:03 am]
• Update to Halls of Honor by Sarthin [November 10, 2024, 04:57:40 pm]
• Halloween 2024 by clbreastmilk [November 04, 2024, 07:55:17 am]
• Some T12 Questions by Miriya [October 28, 2024, 01:38:59 pm]
• HW 2024 by Raygan [October 21, 2024, 08:03:01 am]
• Ninja Looting by zefirus [October 20, 2024, 04:55:10 pm]
• Official Guild Creation R... by Tylperion [September 15, 2024, 11:54:54 am]
• T11 Feedback Thread by Sarthin [August 28, 2024, 12:45:01 pm]
• What's next for the rest ... by Mixlor [August 27, 2024, 02:01:07 pm]
• Hard Mode NPC by Mixlor [August 06, 2024, 09:37:00 am]
• Looking for some advice (... by Draca [July 31, 2024, 10:55:17 am]
• 4th of July Event by orkiho [July 12, 2024, 07:35:22 pm]
• New Server update causing... by Mixlor [June 02, 2024, 01:01:54 am]
• Memorial Day Event by wachna [May 30, 2024, 01:52:28 pm]
• EZServer Rules by Sarthin [May 30, 2024, 01:10:12 pm]
• Fear Itself, testing week... by torotornot [May 24, 2024, 09:29:42 am]
• Fear Itself, the new Even... by kendiian [April 26, 2024, 11:48:38 pm]
• Recent & Upcoming Changes by Dokplayer2 [April 23, 2024, 10:48:30 pm]
• Issue with my epic by fangzy [April 22, 2024, 07:32:32 pm]
• Few Changes - T11, VP, Gu... by clbreastmilk [April 10, 2024, 11:32:33 am]
• Combine HoH tokens macro.... by Dbeast [April 04, 2024, 05:10:46 pm]
• Warlock self buffs by Fecs [April 04, 2024, 03:56:08 pm]

Members

• Total Members: 6156
• Latest: Rin1

Stats

• Total Posts: 65127
• Total Topics: 5066
• Online Today: 298
• Online Ever: 8678
• (December 19, 2022, 02:32:09 pm)

Users Online

Users: 0
Guests: 281
Total: 281