Sissl
06-17-2005, 07:36 PM
Live Forum
This was a forum led by EQ producer Craig Knapp (Zorillious) and dedicated to features / situations that are already in the live game. The very first topic that came up was hacking / cheating / macroquest etc... the big quote of this segment was "we ban people all the time". There was much back and forth discussion, but the upshot of the whole deal was that Dev will try to get some weekly stats going on how many people in game get the ban-stick for doing bad things. This should serve has a handy deterrent for those people who think that using Macroquest to cheat is ok. Dev also continues to implement tools to help them catch people who cheat, such as monitoring how many people it took to kill mob_001 and if it was done with 6 when it's meant for 54 (or some other ludicrous thing) then huge spinning lights go off in Brenlo's bedroom and a loud klaxxon goes off as well, waking him up from his dreams of pie
However, just because they have all these new tools up, don't assume that they know all the cheating that is going on. If you see an exploit, don't assume that SOE knows about it -- for example, apparently SOE only became aware of the exploit that allows you to wear equipment that you're not supposed to (ie gear flagged as none / none, or not of your class/race) about 5 weeks ago. So if you see it, report it.
The next portion of the Live events focussed on the availability of In-game tools, such as the LFG tool, raid tool, and in-game maps. These are still all features that require you to own the relevant expansion or you don't get them. Klonn brought up the idea that those be made available to all players (in particular the LFG tool, preferably revamped), and there was support from other players in the room. Dev's response can be summed up in the quote "People buy expansions for content, not features" -- they want you to pick up the newest expansion for the zones you can go to and the mobs you can fight, and the things you can see, not becase that if you pick up the expansion, your gameplay will be easier. To that end the LFG tool is planned to be free, as are in-game maps. Other tools *may* get the same treatment. Another big project for them will be UI consolidation, such as merging the Task window, and the Missions window, (and possibly the raid window) all into one. There are other things planned such as one UI panel for inventory,stats,skills, AA points, leader points, etc. Currently that list is handled by 4 separate windows. Also mentioned were petition + help + bug + feedback all going to one window.
Lastly, Tastian brought up the idea of making more stats from the other side of the game engine available, such as breaking AC back up into avoidance and mitigation, or making the effect of defensive AA's show up in the AC value. Various behind the scenes mechanics were brought up to be put "into view". The response was somewhat mixed, with many devs there present of the view of "just play the game, don't obsess over numbers", along with the fear that too much complexity in the character panel will confuse new players to the game. They did however say that they'd consider making some more information available. The possibility that there be an "advanced information" panel in the player UI that players don't have to look at was asked for as a comprimise from one of the players.
A few quick one-liners: Ability to gain leader AA points is harder now since players always want to make the person with the most leader AA's the leader, leading to a case of have's and have nots. Dev took back a number of ideas around this.
Some ideas around encouraging more people to play / test things on Test were discussed, including the idea of player copies to test. Dev have to be sensitive to the desires of the folks who play on test on a regular basis, as they put up with a lot of crap including a lot of bugs, server going down multiple times a day etc.
This summer, they're planning to announce a change to DirectX9.0c from DirectX9.0b that they're using right now. Many of you already have 9.0c, if you're running XP SP2, you already got it, if you run any recent games, you've already got it etc. This is not going to be a major engine change like the minor disaster a while back, it's just a matter of taking the exact same code they have, putting in the 9.0c libraries instead of 9.0b libraries and hitting compile. The end result is going to be a system performance benefit -- apparently 9.0b did things a tad "inoptimally" to quote dev, and 9.0c will do the exact same things... only better.
Per Brenlo, there are currently NO plans to introduce Station Exchange to the EQ 1 universe, it's going to be strictly EQ2 at this point. (Station exchange is the Plat / characters / items for Real Life $$$ thing that's made all the headlines recently)
Class Balance
This section was a wild free for all of classes trying to get their favorite issues raised. At one point Klonn didn't think I was being agressive enough and hopped in as well regarding new pet models -- necromancers as a whole were probably sitting at over 50% of the speech time, I was just trying to be polite /pokes Klonn. With that in mind I'll try to give a running play by play.
I kicked the whole thing off with a big discussion on pets. I immediately made it a team play engaging the magicians and beastlords in an all out rush to keep the other finger wigglers at bay for the precious dev time -- Pet survivability at raids was the first topic to hit the plate. AE rampage killing pets in Anguish was brought up first, with the fact that we don't necessarily know which models are always going to AE rampage in advance. Dev said that they'd look into making it more predictable which models are going to rampage or which names will rampage so that the pet owners can hold back on those mobs, or something similar.
The next pet related topic was raised by Klonn who seated himself next to me: The topic of making a pet hold type ability available earlier in pet caster's careers so that the stigma of NO PETS could perhaps in part be avoided in the future. A variety of methods were included in Klonn's huge printed list (of which I also got a copy). Naladini also suggested that flat out the ability be given out earlier. Pet shrink and summon companion may also be up for review. Naladini also raised pet run speed as an issue. There was much scribbling of notes by Dev in this portion.
Pet focus scaling: Ryan mentioned that the pet focus effects on test have all been bumped up "a tier", and that AC is now being added for each focus level to aid in pet mitigation. Ryan also touched on the fact that because of the nature of how pet foci operate, that there are fewer types of them in the world than other types of effects. Essentially when you summon a pet, the game will scan to see what is the highest level focus you own, then it will summon a completely different pet based on that focus. Pet foci aren't generating a "your pet gets +2 to damage, and 23 more regen a tick, and 500 more ac", but in actuality are summoning a completely different base pet depending on the focus. As such dev have a lot more leeway in deciding what a specific focus does, but also they have a lot more work to do when designing a new focus tier, as they have to hand craft a new set of NPC stats for every pet in the game that that focus could create -- all the way down to (theoretically) level one pets since nothing is stopping me from casting a level one pet while wearing pet focus gear. Possibly they don't go down that far (maybe only to 44-49 pets) -- I didn't ask. Another topic touched on was the fact that Minion of Eternity was perhaps a bit TOO good for it's time. This is why a lot of pet casters aren't as happy with the focii since then. RS and onwards are apparently fine in how they scale (after the bump up on test) but to us they may seem lacklustre in comparison to where MoE is. Tastian noted in his writeup of the Fan Faire that he's still not happy with where focus effects are, and will be continuing to focus on pet upgrades.
The concept of pet damage #'s for procs was brought up so we can see the results of pet toys / lifetap procs etc. This was met with a reply of "makes sense", so looks good on that front.
Going to bang out a few in point form: Druids brought up stance changes -- they'll be looked at after the base changes to heals / dps etc are done. Dev made clear that this isn't something that they want other classes to be asking "mee too! I want stances as well!" -- likely to remain dru only because of the unique situation druids are in.
As I said earlier in this thread, they will look at resists on raids on a case by case basis. I didn't have a table of numbers in front of me that show that our dps is *more* adversely affected by these narrow lines of resist than other classes. As long as we're hurt "about" equally it seems, then they're fine with the status quo. Prathun stated high resists was usually by design, but he would be willing to evaluate a raid scenario if the mob is too resistant or is too punishing on casters.
new spells (fear, screaming terror upgrade) are going to be aquired in a way is consistent to where they are in progression - that is some will be DoN points, some will be Muramite Rune turn ins, etc.
New pet models for spectres : "will be likely for this fall" -- emphasis on the likely, it isn't a promise, but looks good.
Twitch upgrade / new spell - pretty much a no / not likely at all
Mindwrack upgrade / new spell - possible, rytan said "maybe".
Mod rods will have the "grey out timer" to show when they can be next used (currently on test)
Wizards will possibly get an upgrade to concussion, many of the "deaggro" spells are due for an update. Concussion was earlier "too powerful" especially with clicky pants, so they were waiting to upgrade the line till it was back in line with what they wanted.
Origin / secondary recall should have a chance to collapse, but it shouldn't grey out the button and have you wait another 30 mins (or whatever) to use it again, should be like a fizzle, just gotta try again.
DPS side, Rytan stated that no class should be flat out superior to another class in all respects in DPS -- ie rogue should not always be top of the pile, for instance wiz should be able to out burst dps rogue. Necro should be able to out-sustained DPS wiz, but should be somewhat below rogue sustained.
The Future of Everquest & Open Discussion
Escape to Norrath - A new tutorial type product that will encourage new players to try the game. Essentially it is the tutorial zone, that will consist of the usual "offline part" of tutorial_a that you do by yourself, then when you go to tutorial_b you get placed on a separate eq server -- currently named "escape". The tutorial_b zone will have the same type of zone load balancing EQ2 does, where once a zone starts getting full, the server will spawn a new instance of that zone. You can play on this zone till around level 10 before getting a free server xfer with gear to a server of your choice. Hopefully players will form friendships and groups and will organically decide on a server to go to together, thus forming their first mini-support network. This will also hopefully spread out additions to server populations evenly across servers, unlike recently where the influx of new players only went to one new server -- such as stromm. The concept behind Escape to Norrath is to place all the new EQ players into ONE place to allow them to form these new friendships and support each other. Currently the newbie cities are ghost towns, and often it is hard for a new player to get the kind of support they need. The plan is to make Escape to Norrath free to all via a variety of media, including CD's in gaming magazines, and free download. There will be no need for a credit card, the only requirement is that the player create a station account. IF they decide to move to a production server after they've tried out the first 10 levels, then they must choose a subscription method. They get dumped into PoK after they subscribe (PoK is going to be completely redesigned in the near future) -- after which they will get quests that encourage them to travel to their home city to pick up on their newbie armor quests etc. Also brand new "mid-newbie" armor quests are currently on Test designed around the 10-30 level range.
The future of EQ and Open discussion were separate sessions but I'm kinda gluing them together here.
New player models: 32 race/gender combinaions + 103 separate animations for each model + doing all the visible armor / attachments for 4 armor types for each model = 8.5 man-years of labor to redo player models in EQ. This is something that they definately want to do, but is on the long-term list because of the sheer amount of time it would take.
/raid assist distance should be equal to /assist player_x distance.
No current plans for offline trading (ala world of warcraft / EQ2)
Exodus bug / 1018 afterwards, was extensively discussed. It is still being worked on, and they're well aware of the issue. Their current stance is that one of the biggest problems is that in most of theses cases you're already dead, your client just doesn't know it yet.
Hybrids discussed the ammount of work required to get the same benefit as a pure melee or pure caster would. IE where a Wiz has to get +hp, +mana, and +DD focus for his elements, or a Melee has to get +haste, +atk, cleave etc, a hybrid has to get both in order to remain effective. (In other words the more sources your DPS is broken up into (each a smaller ammount that adds to the whole) the more effort it takes to raise it. A simply designed character has to raise 1 or 2 source by 10% with a couple pieces of gear, a complex character has to raise 6-8 sources of DPS with 6-8 pieces of gear. e.g. a beastlord has to get melee AA's and gear, caster AA's and gear, pet AA's and gear etc. Tastian suggested hybrid focii that combined multiple focii together, and cheaper cost on AA's than the equivalent melee or caster would have to pay.
Ok I'm tired of typing -- Here's some links to other Writeups
Gloriana from the Shaman's Crucible (http://forums.interealms.com/shaman/showthread.php?threadid=27149)
Naladini the Wanderer, Stormhammer.org Admin, Magician (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=magicianbalance&message.id=3816)
Jarethsun, Bard Correspondent (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=bardbalance&message.id=4351&jump=true)
Tastian, Beastlord Correspondent (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=beastlordbalance&message.id=2757)
Grunties, Ranger Correspondent (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=rangerbalance&message.id=18458)
Nedrom, Monkly Business (http://p201.ezboard.com/fmonklybusiness43508frm1.showMessage?topicID=48960 .topic)
KyrosKrane, Eqtraders.com (http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/showthread.php?t=22228)
Mobhunter #1 -- Loral (http://mobhunter.com/000063.html)
Mobhunter #2 -- Loral (http://mobhunter.com/000064.html)
Mobhunter #3 -- Loral (http://mobhunter.com/000065.html)
Gemdiver, CastersRealm (http://eq.crgaming.com/viewarticle.asp?Article=8993)
There, that should keep you all occupied. If you find more reviews, feel free to link them below
This was a forum led by EQ producer Craig Knapp (Zorillious) and dedicated to features / situations that are already in the live game. The very first topic that came up was hacking / cheating / macroquest etc... the big quote of this segment was "we ban people all the time". There was much back and forth discussion, but the upshot of the whole deal was that Dev will try to get some weekly stats going on how many people in game get the ban-stick for doing bad things. This should serve has a handy deterrent for those people who think that using Macroquest to cheat is ok. Dev also continues to implement tools to help them catch people who cheat, such as monitoring how many people it took to kill mob_001 and if it was done with 6 when it's meant for 54 (or some other ludicrous thing) then huge spinning lights go off in Brenlo's bedroom and a loud klaxxon goes off as well, waking him up from his dreams of pie
However, just because they have all these new tools up, don't assume that they know all the cheating that is going on. If you see an exploit, don't assume that SOE knows about it -- for example, apparently SOE only became aware of the exploit that allows you to wear equipment that you're not supposed to (ie gear flagged as none / none, or not of your class/race) about 5 weeks ago. So if you see it, report it.
The next portion of the Live events focussed on the availability of In-game tools, such as the LFG tool, raid tool, and in-game maps. These are still all features that require you to own the relevant expansion or you don't get them. Klonn brought up the idea that those be made available to all players (in particular the LFG tool, preferably revamped), and there was support from other players in the room. Dev's response can be summed up in the quote "People buy expansions for content, not features" -- they want you to pick up the newest expansion for the zones you can go to and the mobs you can fight, and the things you can see, not becase that if you pick up the expansion, your gameplay will be easier. To that end the LFG tool is planned to be free, as are in-game maps. Other tools *may* get the same treatment. Another big project for them will be UI consolidation, such as merging the Task window, and the Missions window, (and possibly the raid window) all into one. There are other things planned such as one UI panel for inventory,stats,skills, AA points, leader points, etc. Currently that list is handled by 4 separate windows. Also mentioned were petition + help + bug + feedback all going to one window.
Lastly, Tastian brought up the idea of making more stats from the other side of the game engine available, such as breaking AC back up into avoidance and mitigation, or making the effect of defensive AA's show up in the AC value. Various behind the scenes mechanics were brought up to be put "into view". The response was somewhat mixed, with many devs there present of the view of "just play the game, don't obsess over numbers", along with the fear that too much complexity in the character panel will confuse new players to the game. They did however say that they'd consider making some more information available. The possibility that there be an "advanced information" panel in the player UI that players don't have to look at was asked for as a comprimise from one of the players.
A few quick one-liners: Ability to gain leader AA points is harder now since players always want to make the person with the most leader AA's the leader, leading to a case of have's and have nots. Dev took back a number of ideas around this.
Some ideas around encouraging more people to play / test things on Test were discussed, including the idea of player copies to test. Dev have to be sensitive to the desires of the folks who play on test on a regular basis, as they put up with a lot of crap including a lot of bugs, server going down multiple times a day etc.
This summer, they're planning to announce a change to DirectX9.0c from DirectX9.0b that they're using right now. Many of you already have 9.0c, if you're running XP SP2, you already got it, if you run any recent games, you've already got it etc. This is not going to be a major engine change like the minor disaster a while back, it's just a matter of taking the exact same code they have, putting in the 9.0c libraries instead of 9.0b libraries and hitting compile. The end result is going to be a system performance benefit -- apparently 9.0b did things a tad "inoptimally" to quote dev, and 9.0c will do the exact same things... only better.
Per Brenlo, there are currently NO plans to introduce Station Exchange to the EQ 1 universe, it's going to be strictly EQ2 at this point. (Station exchange is the Plat / characters / items for Real Life $$$ thing that's made all the headlines recently)
Class Balance
This section was a wild free for all of classes trying to get their favorite issues raised. At one point Klonn didn't think I was being agressive enough and hopped in as well regarding new pet models -- necromancers as a whole were probably sitting at over 50% of the speech time, I was just trying to be polite /pokes Klonn. With that in mind I'll try to give a running play by play.
I kicked the whole thing off with a big discussion on pets. I immediately made it a team play engaging the magicians and beastlords in an all out rush to keep the other finger wigglers at bay for the precious dev time -- Pet survivability at raids was the first topic to hit the plate. AE rampage killing pets in Anguish was brought up first, with the fact that we don't necessarily know which models are always going to AE rampage in advance. Dev said that they'd look into making it more predictable which models are going to rampage or which names will rampage so that the pet owners can hold back on those mobs, or something similar.
The next pet related topic was raised by Klonn who seated himself next to me: The topic of making a pet hold type ability available earlier in pet caster's careers so that the stigma of NO PETS could perhaps in part be avoided in the future. A variety of methods were included in Klonn's huge printed list (of which I also got a copy). Naladini also suggested that flat out the ability be given out earlier. Pet shrink and summon companion may also be up for review. Naladini also raised pet run speed as an issue. There was much scribbling of notes by Dev in this portion.
Pet focus scaling: Ryan mentioned that the pet focus effects on test have all been bumped up "a tier", and that AC is now being added for each focus level to aid in pet mitigation. Ryan also touched on the fact that because of the nature of how pet foci operate, that there are fewer types of them in the world than other types of effects. Essentially when you summon a pet, the game will scan to see what is the highest level focus you own, then it will summon a completely different pet based on that focus. Pet foci aren't generating a "your pet gets +2 to damage, and 23 more regen a tick, and 500 more ac", but in actuality are summoning a completely different base pet depending on the focus. As such dev have a lot more leeway in deciding what a specific focus does, but also they have a lot more work to do when designing a new focus tier, as they have to hand craft a new set of NPC stats for every pet in the game that that focus could create -- all the way down to (theoretically) level one pets since nothing is stopping me from casting a level one pet while wearing pet focus gear. Possibly they don't go down that far (maybe only to 44-49 pets) -- I didn't ask. Another topic touched on was the fact that Minion of Eternity was perhaps a bit TOO good for it's time. This is why a lot of pet casters aren't as happy with the focii since then. RS and onwards are apparently fine in how they scale (after the bump up on test) but to us they may seem lacklustre in comparison to where MoE is. Tastian noted in his writeup of the Fan Faire that he's still not happy with where focus effects are, and will be continuing to focus on pet upgrades.
The concept of pet damage #'s for procs was brought up so we can see the results of pet toys / lifetap procs etc. This was met with a reply of "makes sense", so looks good on that front.
Going to bang out a few in point form: Druids brought up stance changes -- they'll be looked at after the base changes to heals / dps etc are done. Dev made clear that this isn't something that they want other classes to be asking "mee too! I want stances as well!" -- likely to remain dru only because of the unique situation druids are in.
As I said earlier in this thread, they will look at resists on raids on a case by case basis. I didn't have a table of numbers in front of me that show that our dps is *more* adversely affected by these narrow lines of resist than other classes. As long as we're hurt "about" equally it seems, then they're fine with the status quo. Prathun stated high resists was usually by design, but he would be willing to evaluate a raid scenario if the mob is too resistant or is too punishing on casters.
new spells (fear, screaming terror upgrade) are going to be aquired in a way is consistent to where they are in progression - that is some will be DoN points, some will be Muramite Rune turn ins, etc.
New pet models for spectres : "will be likely for this fall" -- emphasis on the likely, it isn't a promise, but looks good.
Twitch upgrade / new spell - pretty much a no / not likely at all
Mindwrack upgrade / new spell - possible, rytan said "maybe".
Mod rods will have the "grey out timer" to show when they can be next used (currently on test)
Wizards will possibly get an upgrade to concussion, many of the "deaggro" spells are due for an update. Concussion was earlier "too powerful" especially with clicky pants, so they were waiting to upgrade the line till it was back in line with what they wanted.
Origin / secondary recall should have a chance to collapse, but it shouldn't grey out the button and have you wait another 30 mins (or whatever) to use it again, should be like a fizzle, just gotta try again.
DPS side, Rytan stated that no class should be flat out superior to another class in all respects in DPS -- ie rogue should not always be top of the pile, for instance wiz should be able to out burst dps rogue. Necro should be able to out-sustained DPS wiz, but should be somewhat below rogue sustained.
The Future of Everquest & Open Discussion
Escape to Norrath - A new tutorial type product that will encourage new players to try the game. Essentially it is the tutorial zone, that will consist of the usual "offline part" of tutorial_a that you do by yourself, then when you go to tutorial_b you get placed on a separate eq server -- currently named "escape". The tutorial_b zone will have the same type of zone load balancing EQ2 does, where once a zone starts getting full, the server will spawn a new instance of that zone. You can play on this zone till around level 10 before getting a free server xfer with gear to a server of your choice. Hopefully players will form friendships and groups and will organically decide on a server to go to together, thus forming their first mini-support network. This will also hopefully spread out additions to server populations evenly across servers, unlike recently where the influx of new players only went to one new server -- such as stromm. The concept behind Escape to Norrath is to place all the new EQ players into ONE place to allow them to form these new friendships and support each other. Currently the newbie cities are ghost towns, and often it is hard for a new player to get the kind of support they need. The plan is to make Escape to Norrath free to all via a variety of media, including CD's in gaming magazines, and free download. There will be no need for a credit card, the only requirement is that the player create a station account. IF they decide to move to a production server after they've tried out the first 10 levels, then they must choose a subscription method. They get dumped into PoK after they subscribe (PoK is going to be completely redesigned in the near future) -- after which they will get quests that encourage them to travel to their home city to pick up on their newbie armor quests etc. Also brand new "mid-newbie" armor quests are currently on Test designed around the 10-30 level range.
The future of EQ and Open discussion were separate sessions but I'm kinda gluing them together here.
New player models: 32 race/gender combinaions + 103 separate animations for each model + doing all the visible armor / attachments for 4 armor types for each model = 8.5 man-years of labor to redo player models in EQ. This is something that they definately want to do, but is on the long-term list because of the sheer amount of time it would take.
/raid assist distance should be equal to /assist player_x distance.
No current plans for offline trading (ala world of warcraft / EQ2)
Exodus bug / 1018 afterwards, was extensively discussed. It is still being worked on, and they're well aware of the issue. Their current stance is that one of the biggest problems is that in most of theses cases you're already dead, your client just doesn't know it yet.
Hybrids discussed the ammount of work required to get the same benefit as a pure melee or pure caster would. IE where a Wiz has to get +hp, +mana, and +DD focus for his elements, or a Melee has to get +haste, +atk, cleave etc, a hybrid has to get both in order to remain effective. (In other words the more sources your DPS is broken up into (each a smaller ammount that adds to the whole) the more effort it takes to raise it. A simply designed character has to raise 1 or 2 source by 10% with a couple pieces of gear, a complex character has to raise 6-8 sources of DPS with 6-8 pieces of gear. e.g. a beastlord has to get melee AA's and gear, caster AA's and gear, pet AA's and gear etc. Tastian suggested hybrid focii that combined multiple focii together, and cheaper cost on AA's than the equivalent melee or caster would have to pay.
Ok I'm tired of typing -- Here's some links to other Writeups
Gloriana from the Shaman's Crucible (http://forums.interealms.com/shaman/showthread.php?threadid=27149)
Naladini the Wanderer, Stormhammer.org Admin, Magician (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=magicianbalance&message.id=3816)
Jarethsun, Bard Correspondent (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=bardbalance&message.id=4351&jump=true)
Tastian, Beastlord Correspondent (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=beastlordbalance&message.id=2757)
Grunties, Ranger Correspondent (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=rangerbalance&message.id=18458)
Nedrom, Monkly Business (http://p201.ezboard.com/fmonklybusiness43508frm1.showMessage?topicID=48960 .topic)
KyrosKrane, Eqtraders.com (http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/showthread.php?t=22228)
Mobhunter #1 -- Loral (http://mobhunter.com/000063.html)
Mobhunter #2 -- Loral (http://mobhunter.com/000064.html)
Mobhunter #3 -- Loral (http://mobhunter.com/000065.html)
Gemdiver, CastersRealm (http://eq.crgaming.com/viewarticle.asp?Article=8993)
There, that should keep you all occupied. If you find more reviews, feel free to link them below