General questions for the community since DoN release

Hello all, Pogobear for those who know me...

Sooo.. I've read some things, mostly from the devs, about the changes and I wanted to get people's consensus on what the biggest changes are and how folks are adapting. For me, the rogue change with vendor poisons a while back was a pretty big one, but I just swapped rogues for monks besides a couple. No big deal. (I'm not here to debate about hundreds of hours of parses calculating average loss or gain in dps based on gear, I would just rather have a monk if I am comparing on which 2 to create at this point. That's all)

These changes are a lot all at once. I haven't logged in since the release. I liken it to several rogue poison type changes all at once. No more blessing of resurrection, no more edict of command, etc. etc. Important tools I had been utilizing for success on certain encounters. I'll start by asking some specifics. These may focus on negatives, but in all honesty... besides the much anticipated introduction of new content (which is HIGHLY appreciated from the devs for all your hard work! You guys are amazing!), they are negatives. They're fair for what it is... we had been benefitting from out of era stuff for a long time... and now I may sound like a spoiled kid complaining I'm not getting my $500 a week allowance anymore lol.. but that's not the intention... I just want to be prepared mentally for what I'm about to experience. Also I don't have the kind of time to just log in and find out, been crazy busy with work.

• Reptile and Sloth, what's status?
• How has mitigation been impacted?
• How has damage been impacted?
• What are some of the most notable changes?
• Are raid encounters seemingly the same? More challenging? What changes do you need to make to adapt?
• Is there anything that seemingly can't be done anymore, that could be done with ease before?

I know the common gamer community response is, "Get gud!" but I'm looking for thought out responses and experiences. I'm not "gud" lol.. I'm old, I'm unreasonably busy with work, I can't make a game my lifestyle.. I just want to log in for a bit and enjoy that time. If it means adapting and focusing on group content in DoN and grouping with other players more as a result of changes.. I'm down for that too.

Peace

 

I'm another dad here that plays pretty casually and has long anticipated DoN and super stoked on the release thus far.

I've also dove into making my own server for my own play, and want to reinforce for old fart solo boxers like me, that's really the ideal option. The PEQ and eqemu teams in general have made spinning up a server and adjusting it to your preferred playstyle TREMENDOUSLY easy.

Okay now that that's our of the way, PEQ: imo this change is a great one. It unlocks much more rapid content release by creating an environment where, with dodh and pro (next 2 expacs) as minor exceptions, ALL content/AAs/spells moving forward have the capacity to be era accurate (or as close as we can get with available knowledge), and to me that makes up for a setback in unique player power creep by 1000000x.

This launch has me feeling a few things similar to others for the short term, but a renewed excitement for the future of eqemu in a big, big way.

And at this point TSS (and consolidated pok spell vendors, and other simplification AAs, and all levels of defiant, etc.) Is only 2 expacs away, with a sense that 2 expacs doesn't seem so far away, given the leaps and bounds of progress made with DoN release to underlying systems that makes devving for future expansions easier.

That's my take

 

Yeah I knew the foundation of the work would be huge.. it's always a give and take... to roll these new expansions out with any sense of purpose, you couldn't have given all of the perks to the expansion, so far back... I am trying to get my finger on the pulse of exactly what's changed, though. Also if content is even doable without the typical "git gud" response lol. I did all the MPG raid trials hours before the release and I have a feeling those will probably be the last ones I'll be able to run, until they're out of usefulness. (well, for me they already kind of are.. but there are a couple accuracy items I can still use)

 

Those that are playing are probably only doing the solo/group stuff in DoN, understandably.

As to your points ..

Reptile and Sloth still seem to be about (for now)
Mitigation took a fair hit with losing some CS/CA
Damage is going to be much lower until you re-farm Panther on all your melee (I suspect this will add up to about 15pc across the board)
BoR is gone so basically don't die or have farmed cleric 1.0's (9s for Reviviscence + med time, let us be optimistic and say 45s per cast, unbuffed just rezzed clerics remember. 54 man team x 45s .. divide by 6 clerics is 7 mins, just for the rezzes). That's a lot of downtime.

The two things have to be separated. Releasing a new expansion, great, everyone loves that. Making existing content harder, I doubt even the devs were very stoked about. They have their reasons ofc and those have been published.

Speaking for myself, I am uninspired to play at all and when I do I will probably just hit up my own server where I can undo some of the changes that I felt were unnecessary. I am seeing some chat on some discords that other people are considering this. That's a bit sad but there is no point in drama bombing about it. It is what it is.

 

Yeah I've seen a lot of talk, I mean a LOT of talk about folks just running their own server. I don't have the time to set it all up or I may consider it... but I would miss the community as well. Since there will likely be a lot of people going for cleric 1.0's now.. I'll have to pass on that idea. At least for now until the bottleneck dies down. I run stuff pretty slow, anyway.. so the idea of manual rez isn't too terrible.. but as you mentioned I just feel uninspired to really log in and unpack it all at this time. I'm sure I'll get over it soon enough lol.

 

Maybe a free Cleric 1.0 for who has already the Cleric 1.5

 

I started playing here a little over a month ago after watching Scintar on twitch, and him helping with some questions and saying how lots of cool things are enabled here like reptile, auras, defiant armor, and zonewides. I got 3 groups at 70 so far, and honestly i'll probably still chug on but knowing these things are gone now is a bit of a let down.

Still don't understand why the PoK spell vendors were changed. It's a huge quality of life to have everything in 1 place. Even Live/TLP eq knows this. Having to run boxes to different zones in this era... no thanks. The current vendors... send em to the gulag and bring back the old ones.

Reptile wasn't removed from characters who had it, it seems but I doubt you can purchase it for additional characters.

Storm Song/Panther removed/deleted from spell book - But those who purchased the spell and kept it in their inventory got to keep it and scribe it. I did this for 1 of my groups for all 69/70 spells in anticipation of them being removed just to see if we kept the spell version and we did. Ban me i'm OP?

Dragon Fang/Volleys not removed/deleted. Love the selective enforcement sometimes.

This server is amazing and pretty much everything I wanted in eq since I found it a little over a month ago and honestly now I just don't feel motivated to level up more boxes to figure out gearing options. Ornate Defiant was such a great gearing option for new toons and there is nothing comparable stat wise vs risk. I can go spend 6 hours getting 6 boxes alt keyed to solro and farm there for hours, but it's slow farming for new crews and I need to learn trade skills to make components.

I think the ONLY thing I disliked about this server previously was the Leadership XP stuff. I come from TLP's/Live and never had to deal with that before, but it wasn't a make or break. I think most of these leadership abilities are "gimmies" now in eq, because they're quality of life stuff. Having to grind days as a new group for 4 points for "inspect buffs" and not knowing if I need 2 ranks of it just to use Mez on my enchanters, and to see debuffs, and I guess I need to grind these points on a character in each group? yikes.

Anyhow, loved the server just a bit disappointed.

 

I posted about this a couple of days ago but Defiant is a trap if you focus on it for gearing. Especially for multiple groups. Wih DoN now you push via LoY zones to 60 then hop over to DoN and start grinding them crystals. Any defiant you see is a bonus but you will bin it pretty quickly.

Don't use Mez? I took a group of nekkid level 1's to max when e3 bard mezz (no chanter, it's a wasted slot in an all melee group) was actually broken and I didn't care. TBF that was a Pally tank so keeping aggro on 3 or 4 was easy enough. I didn't even turn leadership on until it was max level and had 200AA. At the end of the day if you really want to mez just make a hotkey for your enchanter to mez your current target using /bct. The Leader AA is just so e3 knows how long the mezz has left, if it doesn't know it spams it. Thus, as long as you haven't defined a mezz in your ini the hotkey method works fine for locking down one mob.

 

**Update - As I am going through my AAs, I can see there are way too many to list. Some things are missing while others are era locked. Curious to see how folks are fairing with the changes - guessing it is gonna be quite an adjustment.

Hey gang. I've been away for a couple years with an occasional pop-in here and there. The DoN xpac got me interested again but with hesitation after stumbling upon this post. I read the News section about things out of era being impacted. Looking at posts above, I see items mentioned like BoR, Storm Song/Panther, CS, CA, Defiant Armor, Reptile, etc.

A list would be awesome for those who need a quick reference when assessing how to reconfigure their toons. Is there a list of everything that was removed or changed in a negative manner? Or someone want to get one started? Something like so... (I've been away too long to accurately manage a list like this. )

DoN Changes
Spells/Songs:
Storm Song - ???

AAs:
Blessing of Resurrection - Removed

Auras:

Loot:
Defiant Armor - ????

Other:
PoK Spell Vendors - ????

 

I think it's important to remember that akka and the PEQ team are open to discussing what PEQ allows vs what peq-expansions project has in place.

i.e. - the release of DoN enforced and proved that the expansion flags work for anyone wanting to select an era-accurate expansion for their own server (HUGE awesome accomplishment).
- that being said, I'm sure there's a forum for discussion on what PEQ allows vs what the expansion flag itself allows. Remember that PEQ is the standard for all eqemu changes, so as a baseline, when eqemu implements a working and accurate expansion flag system, expect it to work when introduced on PEQ. From there we as a community can drive change for the PEQ playerbase.
- examples include the client QoL improvements (10 inventory slots, 24bank slots, xtar window) that DoN release proved work for the expansion flag system, but akka reverted due to community and server vision.

I think BoR goes beyond QoL tho. changing the penalty of a death is a huge design decision, and heavily adjusts how risk averse playing the game is. I think it's a good idea to make the playerbase risk averse in an MMO, but I realize that may be an unpopular opinion.

 

I definitely agree on the crystals route.. that stuff is probably comparable if not better than ele gear from PoP

 

Hiyas, as a casual player I was redoing AAs and Spells the last days. Now I am up with some questions:
- how you handle the missing of Cleric BoR? are you all doing the cleric 1.0 for clicky? I think it should be possible to change the aerez command to work with the clicky, right? The downtime on rezzing when only short on playtime is apita
- how are you farming the now missing spell components for panther and bard song? I take a look at mqemulator, and found every cleric has the chance of dropping the needed Shabby Runic Vellum with a chance of 0,01/0,04. Or are they dropping by some NPC like allakhazam says? As casual player I often have the lack of time for camping and farming, so are enough dropping for buying spells from other players? I have research now of 200, but the trival for panther is way above 300

Thanks for the great job you all doing with this project!

 

I thought you just buy those spells with crystals

 

oh, I never played DoN on live before, just checked allakhazam for the DoN progression now. The spells are tier 2. I thought I have to research the spells.

 

Up to lvl 61, you can buy those songs/spells with crystals. The lvl 69 versions are awarded after t2 progression on DoN.
Keep in mind crystals are tradeable too, so if you're boxing, a single mission is enough crystals to buy a lvl 61 song or spell (and some).

As for aerez, if you're using e3, it was always built to accommodate "best available". I.e., it checks for BoR, then checks for epic, then checks for highest lvl rez spell in book, and uses whichever it encounters first. You shouldn't need to change any commands, it'll just take longer due to cast time and/or mana. Trick of the trade: always rez a bard first for Regen song, then other clerics to help rezzing and don't forget about dru/shm rez AAs, and paladin for 90rez. Rezzing a full raid doesn't usually take that long if you min/max it.
Another nuance- dru/shm AA call a character to corpse without fully rezzing, so you can call clerics and they'll still have the mana of a nekked toon to cast a few rezzes

 

"Damage is going to be much lower until you re-farm Panther on all your melee (I suspect this will add up to about 15pc across the board)"

What's Panther? My melee's never had it.

 

Think he meant Panther on all your Shammies as it's a shammy spell

 

Yeah I tried logging in thinking I'll just deal with things for what it is.. but my guys can't even follow behind me anymore.. they move so slow.. I assume something about the client.. either way.. if I can't even move.. I'll just give it a few years to maybe iron out all the kinks

 

On the bonus side.. if you were thin on AA's like around 800-900 and you were still finding things you were interested in spending AA on.. you're well over max of anything useful now, for those that don't care for the AA grind. I noticed my tank took about a 400 health hit.. that mixed with mitigation hit will hurt.. no cleansing totems will hurt or I should say would have hurt on OMM for example but I don't see how people will be getting there very easily now, on their own. If anything these changes can be good for building community.. it would be rough trying to 54 man box these encounters but if people work together.. it could help some. Take some time to tweak each of your groups and be aware that your specializations on casters have been reset. You don't want to be surprised by your cleric having it's evocation as it's highest skill. That's my take away.. have fun all.