Author Topic: February 13, 2014 - EverQuest Developer Chat Transcript  (Read 12655 times)

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Offline Rorce

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February 13, 2014 - EverQuest Developer Chat Transcript
« on: February 13, 2014, 11:37:16 PM »
This is NOT the full logs, but rather a very cleaned up version with the player question followed by developer answer. There was much chatter and unanswered questions in between each. If you are bored and wish to subject yourself to the torture of reading the full logs, they can be found by Clicking Here.



Piestro: So let's get this started folks, before we start answering questions
Piestro: Thom Terrazas is Phathom, the producer for EQ
Thom Terrazas: Welcome everyone! I am Thom Terrazas, Senior Producer on EverQuest (aka Phathom). Great to have everyone here to talk about the great things coming up in EverQuest!
Piestro: Jchan is Technical Director on EQ
JChanSOE: Hi
Elidroth SOE: I'm Doug Cronkhite, also known as Elidroth. I'm the systems lead, and AA designer on EQ
EQ-Aristo: I'm Ed Hardin, Senior Designer on EQ. Mainly I do spells but I also mess with timing scripts and building our patches.
Lyndro: Howdy folks. I'm Akil Hooper, also know as Lyndro. I'm the creative director for EverQuest (EverQuest II as well, but that's not too relevant at this moment)
Jcaraker: Good afternoon, all! I'm Prathun, the lead designer on EverQuest. We used to do developer chats every month or so, back in the day, so it'll be fun to get back into the chat saddle again. :) Thank you all for joining us.
EQ-Aristo: I have the coldest office.
Elidroth SOE: Ed has the Icebox Office
Piestro: I'm jealous of Aristo's office
Elidroth SOE: I am not
Jcaraker: Wish I had a colder office.
Lyndro: Hey folks: This chat is unmoderated. Let's try to keep the chatter down just to questions and answers to keep it from getting too unruly.
JChanSOE: We don't currently have an estimate of when the Test server chat will be available. The Live version is currently running and we are currently working on making it more stable. We have a few options for new systems, but in the mean time we've been running diagnostics and adding in more alerts to help us pinpoint the issue.

Drachnor: My question is simple. Can you all take a look at the spawn times on all pre Planes of Power mobs and adjust them to a more reasonable spawn time that is 2-6hours instead of days? Its impossible to progress in old content because of people who have been permacamping these rare creatures and keeping entire zones killed for 10+years. Its so bad that it took me 13 years to get my epic 1.0 because I refused to buy the multiquest off the guy peramcamping the mobs. It would be nice to see older content adjusted in order to allow players chances to see such great content. The content is 10+years old. It is no longer relevant and should no longer affect the game world if there spawn time was reduced.
Jcaraker: Revamping some of the older spawns for pre-instanced content comes up a lot. Without any hyperbole, this would be an epic task and unfortunately we don't have a clean way to do this without also impacting the progression servers, which would break one of the reasons why players want to play on that kind of retro server.
Lyndro: Drachnor: Also, but we have to keep the progression server(s) in mind. Also, it doesn't sound as though increasing the spawn rate will really fix your problem. It'll just make the person who is permacamping the spawns get them that much more often.

Yinla: Who does the reanimated hand in lower guk belong to?
EQ-Aristo: Someone very, very large.
EQ-Aristo: Hope you don't find out.

JenarieEQ: easy question piestro - is there a date for patch or is 'sometime next week but not monday' still the best guestimate :)
Piestro: Patch will be on the 19th Jenarie *99%*

Bonkdawg: As a player that just recently returned to EQ (I have a level 80 druid that was started in 1999 w/ a few hundred aa's), I came back because EQ is still the most challenging MMO in my opinion. I do like the idea of the AA grant, because it is very tough to get a new character up to par. However I do think there should be some kind of reward for the people that have spent so much time grinding out the AA's.
Lyndro: Bonkdawg: Welcome back! People who earned the AAs will have an easier time (sort of) earning the associated achievements, as the granted AAs don't count toward your totals for achievements. We don't want to make something like that totally impossible to achieve based off of a decision that you can't undo.

Spnranger: Any thoughts to maybe a special Type 21 aug set for grinding out the aa's or a special title for grinding them out rather than opting in to the free ones?
Elidroth SOE: We are not planning on offering any reward or compensation for players who have already earned their AA to this point.
Piestro: We talked about it a lot
Piestro: and tried to come up with ideas that were fair and appropriate

Kingrogue2: Will we get to chose where our AAs goes when we get them?
Piestro: They are preset kingrogue2

Sineroth: can u make it so snakes and fish and stuff with no legs cannot kick?
Piestro: we have mostly made that change sineroth, let us know if you see one doing it
Jcaraker: Sineroth: The race data can be changed so that certain races (like snakes and ravens) can't kick. It *should* be set up that way already, but I can take another look and make sure it's set up correctly.

Sokonx: To make previous skill mod equipment and worn effect equipment useful. Example RoF T4 class specific weapons. Would the devs consider the addition of 2 new inventory slots to the game. 1 that gave the user the benefit of any item with a skill mod placed in it, and the other that gave the benefit of any item with a worn effect put in that slot, without actually wearing either item.
Elidroth SOE: We have no plans to create any new inventory slots at this time. There is enough gear to chase without creating more, and the addition of slots as suggested could create a situation where one class would get drastically better benefits than another from such a slot

Sycloniss: My questions is about the Raid UI. Any chance EQ will update the raid UI to current MMO standards. The current raid UI is very rough to work with. There is no way to see groups hp, mana, end. No easy way to change players around. No easy way to drag and drop members/groups you wish to keep an eye on. EQ is the only game I never want to be raid leader.
JChanSOE: We're always looking for ways to improve our UI and smooth out rough edges. For the smaller requests, we try to take care of them as time allows. For larger revamps, we need to take the proper time to work out all the potential issues. The quickest way to work out those issues is to start on the forums so we can get many voices and ideas on the UI changes early.

Lowbrow: With the goal for you to deliver content on a more regular basis, will there be changes to Hot Zones more frequently?
Jcaraker: Updating the hotzones more frequently as part of our weekly updates is a good idea. I'll keep that in mind the next time we're planning what to do. Thanks!

Sphynx CT: Lyndro, you mention the achievements as if they mean something to the game. What purpose does it have to earn all the achievement points? The aa are what effect the gameplay.
Lyndro: I made (and make) no judgement as to the value of achievements. I simply state that is what you "get" for earning them. We decided that we don't want to create a power gap that can't be bypassed between players that choose to earn their AA and players that have their AAs granted. Furthermore, we didn't want to have power associated with a decision that you couldn't change or undo.

Loonytoony the original nut: Hi devs my questions are on a broad number of subjects. As a cleric with the recent up comming changes are we going to get our damage ability ie ability to kill adjusted? Second with shining also getting adjusted are clerics going get adjustments in offensive utitility ie the ability to buff group dps and debuff mob intake on mobs from player dps?
EQ-Aristo: We're open to feedback on what Clerics are lacking at this point, but personal damage isn't high on our list of prioritiies for the class. The changes we made to the Shining Armor line were meant to make sure that you can still fullfil those roles in groups that aren't fighting dozens of mobs at once. Please try out the changes on Test and let us know if we're not hitting that mark.

Yinla: can you give us an insight into when the next part of CotF will be out, and what kind of content it will have?
Thom Terrazas: Yinla, after the anniversary we will be working on more content that ties into COTF. We are planning to have more zones + all the trimmings.

Pokkerin: I would like to know why assisnate is being reduced when it does not go off that often, especially compared to zerkers decap , rogues can only mass kill if we use counter attack and that has a 25 min cool down, zerkers can decap just about anything that has a head, rogues can only assisnate humanoid mobs, we have no unfair advantage in getting aa, rogues main purpose is to kill and now the one thing we have ( assisnate) is gonna work less than it already works yet zerkers can still decap just about anything and procs a lot more than assinate, why even mess with assisnate, why not make it so zerker can decpa the same mobs we can assisnate, why make it proc less when it already does not proc often, not like people thingk it does
Elidroth SOE: While a single individual using Headshot or Assassinate doesn't directly impact server stability, when you have multiples of those classes doing so it does. But at the same time, that wasn't the ONLY reason those abilities were changed. The issues with Headshot, Assassinate, and Decapitation were in our minds for a very long time, and this seemed like the right timing to make changes. We felt it better to make the big changes in one motion, that than continually hit people with things over time.

Axxius: Auto-granting AA just dumps a bucket load of AA on the character. The only choice is 'all or nothing'. There was a proposal in the big thread to simply set the cost of all these AA to 1. I posted another proposal that allowed you to set cost % AA discounts for each expansion. Both proposals let the player get the AA cheaply but with a nonzero amount of work and while keeping control of what they get. Have you seen those proposals? What do you think of them?
Elidroth SOE: We understand, and we've seen those comments and suggestions. In this case, we simply decided this was not the direction we wanted to go.
Thom Terrazas: Axxius, we discussed it but we chose not to go that route.


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« Last Edit: February 13, 2014, 11:49:46 PM by Rorce »

Offline Rorce

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Re: February 13, 2014 - EverQuest Developer Chat Transcript
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2014, 11:37:35 PM »
Sphynx CT: hom, how long are the anniversary events scheduled to be around for this year? Also, are there going to be any raids associated with the 15th anniversary or any additional information you can give out yet about what is going to be new for the 15th?
Thom Terrazas: We are going to start rolling out Anniversary events from past years as early as late February and we will be rolling more out each week or two and tie into Player Designed Missions.

Baramos123: on the test server assassination is still triggering off of ripostes
Elidroth SOE: Yeah.. Assassinate triggering off ripostes was retained due to the change in direction
Elidroth SOE: I thought I had mentioned that in my updates in the forum post

Rorce: Is decap going to continue firing off riposte too, then?
Elidroth SOE: Yes. Decapitation also wasn't changed in that respect as a result of the proc chance changes

Drachnor: This one is something I have brought up before as well. Have you all ever considered updating the Casino to include more items. There are many items that no longer exist for instance the BFG. I would love to see the Casino revamped with more no longer dropped items. I even think that a new system maybe adding the items to the Casino but making them require a Platinum ticket instead of a Gold. Since gold can be gotten through loyalty now.
EQ-Aristo: Casino - We've had a lot of discussions about adding more items to the Casino. We're probably not going to update that specifically, but we're exploring other options for getting items that no longer drop into the game. We may have something you'll like coming in later this year...

Aludex: froglok or guktan?
EQ-Aristo: Frogloks taste gamier.
Elidroth SOE: Aludex - is that a Boxers of Briefs kind of question?

Dimencia: DEV-Question(s): AA Why is there no other path of consideration being discussed as a way to obtain catch up AA's Other than the 1 time DUMP of 16 expansions? also with auto dump of aa's if you opt in at 75, is this a reopt out after? can you toggle it on and off as you see fit?
Piestro: you can toggle it on and off dimencia

Sphynx CT: Elidroth, any chance at getting the Battle Leap ability looked at so you don't land on top of the mob, unable to see your target?
Elidroth SOE: unfortunately, the Battle Leap type abilities simply don't have that kind of precision control over landing point.

Iceeagle2: What I would like to see is mannequins brought into the game so you could display your armor in your house. Weapons are nice, but I am just as proud of my armor as well.
Thom Terrazas: I agree. That would be an excellent addition. Something that is always on the list that doesn't win out on the priority of work :) Something to discuss this year though to move it up if we can

Kinadorm: Are there plans to update the audio trigger interface to allow categories or notes about triggers?
JChanSOE: There aren't any current plans to update the audio triggers for categories or notes. It's an interesting idea, I'll add it to "The List".

Pintoy: I would like to see the perfected augmentation distiller moved to a vendor and sold for plat.
Jcaraker: The Perfected Augmentation Distiller is available on the Loyalty Vendor. In addition, it will also soon be available on the Marketplace (if it isn't already).

Ashrtan: EQ Devs - Can you add a filter to turn off flurry message spam at some point in the future?
JChanSOE: Yes, going on "The List" right now.

Dimencia: will there be any requirements other than Level to be granted approx 4k aa's?
Lyndro: Lots of other options were considered, both before we announced our plans and after they went out. We had to weigh our balance desires against what was technically feasible, and after everything this was what we chose. Yes though, you can opt in and opt out. The grant is a toggle. This is really only viable as you unlock prereqs (ie level mostly).

Qalliel: any chance of adding instances of old worl dungeons for higher levels like tne unrest mission?
Thom Terrazas: Definitely a chance. I think allowing you to go back and adventure in an nostalgic zone that you played in early on but now at a higher level is pretty exciting. We have done a little bit of that work in our Hardcore Heritage events and we could do more this year. Nothing definite at this time though.

Elidroth SOE: Some clarification on the auto-grant of AAs. Forgive me if this is long-winded. The AA auto-granting is a button that is toggle-able. You can turn it on and off as you desire. The AA's granted come as a function of your level. For example, if you opt-in at 55, you would receive the AA from Level 51 to 55. You could then turn it off, and level to 70 if you want, and not receive any more AA granted to you. If you then turned it on, you would receive the AA from 55 to 70. You can opt-in or out at any time.

WarriorSheena: Aristo, what direction do you plan on taking the warrior class in? What should our niche be and have you looked into cleric spell conflict issues with No Time to Bleed?
EQ-Aristo: As always, we're looking at ways to make sure that Warriors are capable tanks in the most situations, while retaining the unique styles of play for all three tank classes. We're aware the current implementaion of No Time To Bleed does have a conflict with some other abilities, and it might change in the future, but right now this implementation is the only way it works without unintended other immunities.

Mike.mcgoveran.1: Was anyone at SoE concerned that a huge set of changes this massive right before the 15th Anniversary would be a bad move? Serious question, not trying to be obnoxios here.
Thom Terrazas: It definitely was a concern to make changes like this at anytime but we're making the right changes for the game and there was a decent effort to implement this before the Anniversary content a month from now.

Darkomen42: Elidroth. Is there any possible chance of survivability for melee being increased where we might be able to molo T1 mobs of an expansion? I'm raid geared and still get smoked if I try to tank entry level mobs in VoA/RoF.
Elidroth SOE: EverQuest is at its heart a group-centric game. While some classes are fully capable of soloing or moloing, we don't set out to design content in order to enable that play style. Adding in additional mitigation or survivability in something we might consider but it would have to be done VERY carefully to ensure we're not creating another balance issue down the road.

Argon1: as far the perfect distillers goes,, since you have to buy that item with loyalty tokens,, it should be a permanent item that does not disappear in 1 click
Jcaraker: In the case of the Perfected Augmentation Distiller and loyalty vendor items, we want those to be expendable items.

Grickous: Are there any plans to host more (any?) "GM Events", such as the arena tournaments that are cross-servers like I saw years ago?
Piestro: GM events are hard, we work with the guide program to do a lot of this type of stuff though

PirloEQ: Question : Thom, what is 'the next big thing' in store for EQ down the road? Can you give us a hint? (ie cross server instancing, new game features, etc)
Lyndro: PirloEQ - I know this is addressed at Thom (And he may add something still) but I'm going to take a stab at it. We want to buckle down and focus on content and making things fun. Getting tools in for the team. We do have plans for features that we'd like to add to the game, but you'll likely see fewer "big features" down the road as we focus on shoring up the features that we have. We have a massive laundry list of things we want to add, fix, or change though.

Dimencia: Will the Autogrant Include ??outdated?? DoN progression AA's?
Jcaraker: Content reward types of AAs like the DoN progression AAs and the Muramite Proving Ground group event AAs will not be auto-granted. You'll still need to do the content to receive those AAs.

WarriorSheena: Are there plans to tune down the rampage damage of raid mobs or give melee some survivability against ramp?
Elidroth SOE: WarriorSheena: Rampage and AOERampage is a delicate balance for sure. I don't think we'll really be altering the way we handle rampage damage, but AOE Rampage is certainly something we need to keep careful eye on.

Thom Terrazas: <not sure who asked this> About another TLP Server - We chose not to do another TLP server for the Anniversary. There are two servers now and one of them is a much higher population and opening another might confuse people. However, we have discussed over the last year to do a different rule set server. These do take a lot of effort and we receive many suggestions all the time. Maybe we ought to open more dialogue on the forums and then do a poll for In-Game for the most requested/favorite.

Mike.mcgoveran.1: Since people that post on the forums are considered to be "the vocal minority", are there any plans in place to learn what "the silent majority" think? This time I was trying to be obnoxios.
Piestro: Please don't try to be obnoxious Mike

Spewspawns: Question = Is this wiki site considered 'official' SOE EQ info or just community driven and thus could be inaccurate?
Piestro: It can be inaccurate spew

Palijim: Can you please make an option on the extended target screen that would allow the player to target the highest HP mob in the vicinity up at the top?:)
JChanSOE: That system really isn't architected that way. We would need to completely rework how that system determines what NPCs are listed on that window.

Eluwenie: Hi everyone, I read there will be a patch on the 17th, sorry I got in late.. can someone bring me up to speed?
Jcaraker: We're aiming for the week of the 17th, which will land the patch on or around the 19th.

JacklSK: Have a question for the fellows/ladies handling the coding for the housing items - could you give a reason it would not be possible to use screenshots as pictures? Going through a QA screening process would filter out immature/offensive/incredibly gross snapshots.
Lyndro: Mostly an issue of storage or transmission. We'd need to potentially store X screenshots for all players (Storage is cheap, is a common response, but the more storage you have the slower you get your data), or we'd need to stream them directly from client to client, which is bad in a lot of different ways. If there is something you really want to put up in your house, Player Studio is a good option (Although I don't believe they take paintings from screenshots).

Dimencia: Devs: will there be a Station Cash Option for Pre-Leveled 85 toons? there are some rumors of this for a preposed 3500sc (being asked through teamspeak)
Thom Terrazas: We have announced we will be doing Heroic Level 85 Characters for the Anniversary. We will be announcing more of the details on this very soon. We are updating our Patch next week on Wednesday and then we'll be focused on how you can obtain one of these characters at the Anniversary.
Lyndro: We haven't settled on a price yet, but they will be SC purchases.

Aludex: sorry not sure if it was answered, is it possible to make headshot proc only off our spells called/focused line instead of randomly and that way with spells we could contol how we use it?
Elidroth SOE: Currently no. Headshot procs off of the archery skill and there is no way to limit it via spell or spell group at this time.

Kearsedtwo: So the only question I have is. what happens after the update to the 3200 aa's I have earned the hard way ? Do they just poof away if I elect the Free aa's ?
Piestro: No AA will be lost as a result of the grant Kearse

Pukgruk: Will heroic characters be implemented at the same time as the auto grant AA?
Thom Terrazas: No they will not. The Auto-Grant will be live next week if things go as scheduled and the Heroic Characters will go live around the Anniversary

KylarNghtangel: You say the game is balanced around groups and yet you have some classes that solo with ease and others who cant do anything without a group. You can not pick and choose you ether need all classes able to solo or none. As it stands now this game is working out outdated ideas and is just barely hanging on. Instead of improving it and building a strong group based community driven game, people solo are antisocial and you do nothing in innovate and improve on systems that were outdated 7 years ago. I miss the days when groups were abundant and you would spend hours to get a few bars of exp and enjoy peoples company and make friends. Now you can get PLed from 1-85+ in a day or less and that does nothing to help anyone
Piestro: that's not a question kylar

Exovane: Will Finishing Blow's Level be increased with the changed to other "killing" blow techniques?
Elidroth SOE: I don't see any reason why not, though all other conditions of Finishing Blow will still remain. Those changes won't make it into the Feb update though. They'll have to wait until March.

Eluwenie: What is included with the patch Jcaraker?
Jcaraker: There are far too many changes in any of our monthly updates to list them all here. To see the latest version of the update notes, go here https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/test-update-02-12-14.208081/
« Last Edit: February 14, 2014, 09:59:18 AM by Rorce »

Offline Rorce

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Re: February 13, 2014 - EverQuest Developer Chat Transcript
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2014, 11:37:50 PM »
SsilentBB: Will you please make it so ONLY people with lvl100 characters can get the lvl85 heroic characters
Thom Terrazas: We will be releasing more information on how Heroic Characters will be available very soon. Look for a full list of information on these characters closer to the beginning of March. Thank you! We're pretty exciting about them too!

Loonytoony the original nut: Question 3 for aristo cleric question agian sorry. Light series is quickly becomming less useful for clerics due to speed needed on heals will the light series be adjusted in speed and will we get any new heal lines?
EQ-Aristo: The cleric's Light line of heals is basically the standard that we base every other heal in the game off of, so we definitely put a lot of effort into getting that one right. We're trying to make healing more proactive than reactive overall, but that line of healing is still the gold standard.

Gabrieles-Tunare: With more and more things being sold for real money via SC is there any concern are we headed to a future where people with the most expendable cash will be on top
Elidroth SOE: Ensuring that you can't simply buy your way to the top is ALWAYS in the forefront of our thought process whenever we think about anything being sold for SC.

Kaenneth: Will heroic characters have full spellbooks/discs?
Thom Terrazas: More information coming around the beginning of March.

Exovane: Will House of Thule zone locks be lifted any time soon?
EQ-Aristo: Your wish is our command! (Actually it's already in the Test patch notes).

SsilentBB: Should we stop asking questions about the heroic characters? =P
Thom Terrazas: Maybe would be good to wait a bit on the finer details. However, YOU Know they're coming :)

Pokkerin: has there been chat about putting in the option when doing TS to be able to combine up to the amount of companents you have,, if you have the supplies to combine up to 30 you could do so with one button in stead of 30 button presses.
Jcaraker: Changing the tradeskill UI to allow you to make as many combines as you have components for sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure how difficult this would be, but we can talk about making this happen in the future. Thanks!

WarriorSheena: Is there any way to make the head of the first creation more easy to get? It's pulling teeth to get anyone to go back and do it
EQ-Aristo: We've talked with the First Creation and he really really really wants to keep his head where it is, so...

Loonytoony the original nut: question 4 regarding future exp/content are we going to be slaying any more dragons or are we pass the age of slaying them?
EQ-Aristo: It's always time to slay the dragon!
Thom Terrazas: Nice EQOA Reference Aristo :)

Axxius: Remember this idea from SOE Live: add a button to the guild management window to raidinvite+dzadd guild members who are not in your raid/dz (when you are a raid/dz leader)? Any progress on that?
JChanSOE: It's on the list...

Gabrieles-Tunare: Question I asked prev and did not recall an answer. I can understand not granting anything to those who have AAs already in place but there is any chance to modify xp gain cap to make it so I am am not punished for taking autogrant to fill in holes ?
Elidroth SOE: The AA bonus curve being exhausted by the auto-granted AA is intended. We do not plan on extending it.

Drachnor: Have you all ever thought about looking at all the quest chains that exist in the older game and the new game as it is. And seeing what quests were never completed by the players? Have a monthly spotlight where you give us a hint like So and so in that place over there has something strange to say about Keyword. Its been said in multiple places that there are many many quests that were never finished by the players. If that is so, it would be nice to see if those that were not broke due to zone changes could be slipped to us a bit so that some old Nostalgia could come about. Bring some needed interest in those old zones. ?
Jcaraker: Any quest of consequence that can reasonably can be completed has already been completed. Any quest in the DB that hasn't been completed is far more likely placeholder data, or apprentice test data, or incomplete than a fully realized quest.

Argon1: As far as the heroic toons go, during the release in EQ 2 you gave 1 heroic to everyone who had an account, are you playing on doing the same when u release them in eq 1
Thom Terrazas: We are discussing something very similar, yes.

Axxius: Pace of development/release (Dave Georgeson's letter): does it mean that you are abandoning the staggered release model and going back to the traditional yearly expansion scheme? I really loved the staggered release model (except for the July date). Are you going to release the whole expansion 21 at once, or still stagger it tier by tier (even though they are already designed)?
Lyndro: I believe Dave covered this in his letter some. We want more of the content to go out with the expansion to make it larger. Beyond that with the monthly content releases, some of it may be related to the current expansion or it may not be.

Lazordian: Once you choose the AA grant can you remove it?
Lyndro: Once you get granted an AA it is yours. You can turn it off to prevent *future* AA grants, but you can't remove any AAs that are given to you this way.

Qest T. Silverclaw: As an Enchanter, I often don't want too much Spell Casting Subtlety AAs. Thank you for not auto-granting them! Since you apparently understand where I'm coming from, is there any possibility we could get the ability to turn this AA on/off or refund it? Have you considered charging SC for complete AA respecs?
Elidroth SOE: The ability to toggle on/off certain passive AA is a subject we've discussed, and is something we are considering, but not something we've committed to internally, and therefore haven't allocated any code time as yet.

Almarsguides: When you make the old zones new again with revamps in the monthly/weekly content patches, are you planning on changing the old zone to new or are you going to make an instanced version of the old zone?
Elidroth SOE: When we revamp a zone on a permanent status, we generally make a new version of the zone. If those revamp changes are temporary, we do not.

Mildaria: Can anything be done about the degeneration of dodge/block vs. raid bosses? Or should we assume this is the standard for future raid content?
Jcaraker: We can take a look at the relative values for raid content and see if they are able to punch through avoidance more than we'd like.

Ashrtan: EQ Devs - Is there a possibility of making personal tribute auto-turning to OFF when you log out at some point? I constantly forget that's it still on when I log for the night.
JChanSOE: Sure it's something we can look into making an option for.

Sphynx CT: Elidroth can you look into making the hate proc off of the warrior aa, Phalanx of Fury, instant hate instead of a hate over time? It causes aggro issues when trying to fade out of combat and then the mob reaggros from the next tick
Elidroth SOE: Yes! This didn't make it into the Feb update, but it WILL be in the March update.

SsilentBB: What class in the game should have the highest max damage attack?
Piestro: Forum Mods

Kearsedtwo: Would it be possible to get any aa a character has aquired to be given back to be reassigned as a reward for the earning of them before the auto-grant up to a certain cap?
Elidroth SOE: No AA earned are going to be refunded.

Thom Terrazas: <<<ABOUT HEROIC CHARACTERS>>> Our system will be similar to the way EQ2 implemented their character but our two games are different. We will be implementing things similar that make sense to us but not everything will be the same. We are changing the Leadership AA Rewards to be granted to everyone next week along with the Auto-Granting of AAs (Optional by each player). So as soon as that is in the books, we'll be finishing up the 15th Anniversary content and will have more specifics at the beginning of March. I can't divulge too much otherwise my Marketing, PR and Community teams will want to have a long talk with me and it will not be favorable to me :)

Offline Rorce

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Re: February 13, 2014 - EverQuest Developer Chat Transcript
« Reply #3 on: February 13, 2014, 11:38:04 PM »
Kaenneth: The leader-AA change includes Raid leader ones, correct?
Elidroth SOE: Correct.

Dimencia: Cleric Question: With the change coming to clerics, shining spell line (sorry if this is a bit confusing sorting through the questions) to taper off the swarm style killing, how bad will this hurt clerics ability to solo (as many feel their group rolls are now heavily diminished... or will clerics have a self only buff version?
EQ-Aristo: Try it out on Test and let us know. We're trying to have the lowest effect on normal gameplay as possible.

Jmcelwee21: Is there any talk of adding more fellowship slots?
Thom Terrazas: No. That is not what Fellowship was intended for. It was meant to be used for a small group of friends that you have. Making it larger is a Small Guild and that's not what we want with Fellowship

Almarsguides: After you guys created heroic adventures, I am curious if you had any desire to revisit how you originally did LDoNs. A lot of people I know absolutely hate Heroic Adventures (mostly because they take away the EQ world, and replace it with instances) and still to this day love LDoNs. I think the reason LDoNs were so loved is because it allowed you to pick what you wanted to do. Like Assassination or Collection. Also leaderboards gave people insentive to farm them non stop. Any desire to make Heroic Adventures more like LDoNs in the future (next expansion or even Tier 2 CoTF)
Lyndro: We think that there were some things about the ways that Heroic Adventures were handled that could have been done better. We plan on revisiting the system, but it won't be coming by in the exact state that it it is in now. We're still discussing what it is going to look like, but we certainly want more static content in the next expansion.
Jcaraker: Ultimately we feel it was a design mistake that there was such a disparity in time required to complete collection/kill LDoN missions versus assassinate/rescue LDoN missions. We would prefer to balance the rewards and the difficulty of randomly assigned content (like LDoN / HAs) so that all of the options are appropriately rewarding and reasonably challenging. The variety inherent in the randomish dungeon crawl is one of the main benefits for this type of content.

WarriorSheena: Can you make toons that go afk in the guild lobby /hidden to clear lag?
JChanSOE: Interesting that you ask that...
WarriorSheena: Jchan, I hate having to wade through everyone and their merc and mount afk for buffs. My computer slows to a crawl in the lobby.
JChanSOE: WarriorSheena, stay tuned :)

Vixxenkiss: QUESTION = Since you are allowing decap and anotomy to proc off ripostes now, will dex still affect proc rate or does a beserker with 600 dex or a beserker with 1200 still proc about twice a minute?
Elidroth SOE: Proc chance is a function of your base hardcapped Dexterity / 35 + Heroic Dexterity / 25.

Rorce: Elidroth - can you take another look at the hate that will be generated by the new decapitation? 18k hate override is really, really harsh. Especially since this is a passive AA that we will not be able to control
Elidroth SOE: Decap hate has been adjusted
Rorce: Elidroth - since yesterdays test patch? The data I'm looking at is from yesterdays patch
Elidroth SOE: Future test patch. It's being worked on.

Spewspawns: QUESTION = (not really) I said this before 'official' start...but the best thing I have seen from the dev team in a while (year or so) was that Feb update thread. That was great. Nice to have the devs talking to us about what they are thinking and why...makes a lot of long threads maybe but was very nice to see...question part = will it continue?
Thom Terrazas: We are discussing how we can commit to something like that. It's difficult to do so sometimes when schedules change or if a new priority moves things out. Good feedback though and I will see if we can champion that more.

Baramos123: elidroth - will there be another test patch this week to be able to test the procrate and further agro reduction changes to decap before it goes live?
EQ-Aristo: Yes, we're planning at least one more Test update as we fix more bugs.

Shang a Lang: Oh, and elidroth.. on hate overrides: The hate generated by Ferocious Kick is probably too high (13k - Ow!) Could you either separate that into a "less ferocious kick" or lower it substantially?
Elidroth SOE: Specific ability issues can be addressed.

Yinla: Will the Beastlord DE pet be available on test anytime soon?
EQ-Aristo: Assuming you mean Wood Elf, it will be available on Test as soon as the rest of the new race/class combination data is ready for Testing.

Darkomen42: Do the devs agree there are some melee dps survivablity issues that could use addressing? Speaking as a melee dps player and normal conversation among fellow dps we think there is. We'd like to know that there's a consensus on the subject.
Lyndro: Devs agree that class balance is a moving target. All aspects of class balance are things that we constantly look to address, both by fixing things that we're not happy with and not breaking things that are close to where we want them.

Deicide808: If I opt-in and get all the AAs will I be at a disadvantage for the latest four expansion AAs?
Piestro: You should opt in deicide
Deicide808: Some people are saying save your bonus, don't opt-in.
Piestro: People say a lot of things
Deicide808: It's true that we will lose the bonus, though, right?
Deicide808: Will that make it super hard to get the remaining AAs I need to be effective enough to join others in groups?
Piestro: yes, pm me on the forums and I'll talk to you more about it
Elidroth SOE: The auto-granting of AA WILL exhaust the exp bonus. This is intended.

Fippy The Lionhearted: Are thre any plans to add plat buyable housing items to the in-game vendors or are all new additions going to be strictly station cash?
Jcaraker: We can look into adding some some more platinum purchasable housing items. Thanks!

Thom Terrazas: <Players: If you could pick a new Rule Set Server that we would open up, What would it be? In the recent past we have had the Time Lock Progression Server and the Mayong 51/50 server. Besides PVP, Firiona and these servers, What Special Rule Set Server would you like to see?
JacklSK: NO MERC
Qest T. Silverclaw: A server with everyone on it so it would be easy to get groups!
Thom Terrazas: No Mercenary Server would do that Qest T... hmm...
WarriorSheena: EQ classic up to POP, like eq mac, noserver expansion unlocks.
Thom Terrazas: Warrior - Stop it at PoP forever?
Lazordian: A Server that stops at PoP
Drachnor: I would play on a locked at POP server
Xekliaa: Yeah, locked at PoP
Thom Terrazas: Stop at POP and no Mercenaries

Argon1: Piestro can u tell me if there is any plans to give druids a fast mana regen?
Elidroth SOE: We don't have any plans to give Druids a fast mana regen ability at this time.

Thom Terrazas: Thanks All! Much appreciated for giving me some thought on a new server
Piestro: Thanks everyone for coming, sorry if we didn't get to your question
Lyndro: Yeah! Thanks for coming! It was nice chatting with you.
JChanSOE: Thanks for coming!
Thom Terrazas: Thank you!
EQ-Aristo: Thanks for coming, everyone!
Elidroth SOE: As always, feel free to PM us on the forums. I can't guarantee I'll answer, but I CAN guarantee I'll read it.
Jcaraker: Thank you all for coming. :) It was great seeing so many old and new faces (names?) in the chat. I hope we can do this again soon!
EQ-Aristo: Likewise. We read everything that comes in.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2014, 10:17:40 AM by Rorce »