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combat upgrade?
docminus
Member Posts: 717
in Everquest II
Haven't been following EQ2 that much lately - I thought I read something about a combat revap or upgrade? (i hope it's not called CU, no matter how good, it gives bad vibes due to swg-cu...).
If there has been one, how significantly are the changes to before? (played for a (very) short time 'bout half a year ago).
Thanks.
If there has been one, how significantly are the changes to before? (played for a (very) short time 'bout half a year ago).
Thanks.
Comments
This cnage was fairly small in terms of game mechanics, but does have a large effect for some people. it's more of a reballance then a change to the combat system itself. EQ2 did have a significant combat revamp a year ago (LU13).
Originally they had spell and combat art damage linked to various skills that went up each level, at the same time you would get an upgrade to the spell/CA every few levels. The problem was that since the old spell had increased in power for 10 levels, it was almost always more effective then its replacement. At the same time Spell damage wasnt linked to anything but its specific skill. This meant, for example, that gaining higher Int as a mage did nothing for your damage output.
Since most of the DPS classes depended heavily on spells and combat arts which actually downgraded as level increased they invariably did only a tiny fraction of the fighter classes who depended more heavily on weapon damage. In the upper 40s my Wizard, a DPS class with nothing else to offer a group was routinely out damages by every tank class in the game by a wide margin (2-3 X even with the best spells and gear avialable).
At the same time, there were some extreme class imbalances. For example, even though all the fighter classes were intended to be tanks, only Guardians and the occasional Berserker ever had that role. At one point it was even possible for them to be effectively immune to damage. Basically 5 of the 6 fighter classes shifted into the DPS class role and in turn while 11 of the 12 DPS classes had no viable role whatsoever.
The healer classes were similarly unbalanced, with only templars being viable healers leaving the other 5 priest classes with no role or purpose in the game.
At one point over 70% of the player base were playing fighters (half of that being guardians), Templars, or Warlocks because the other 14 classes were completely useless.
The revamp brought a lot more class balance but it did upset a lot of Templars who had decided it was their right to be the only real healers a lot of Guardians who had decided it was their right to be the only real tanks (they have since campaigned themselves back into that role ). It also upset some Warlocks who went from being the only DPS class that could actually help groups damage output to an underperforming class.
This revamp left a few problems however. On the defensive side adding avoidance and armor still had exponential gains. For example adding 1000 mitigation may have taken you from 30% damage resist to 40% or that same 1000 mit could take you from 70% to 80%. The problem is that going from 70% to 80% is a 50% reduction in incoming damage while 30% to 40% is only a 13% reduction. This exponential scaling meant that anything that could hurt a plate tank enough to require a heal would kill anyone else in one hit.
Another problem is that the caps on stats were far to easily achievable. After the first fix these stats did have a meaningful effect on combat, but they had to put caps on them to keel the effect from getting out of hand. The problem was that even mediocre gear would allow you to hit these caps, leaving players with little to aim for once they hit level 70.
The solution to both of these was diminishing returns. Adding 1000 mit increases your damage resist percentage more at 30% then it does when you are at 70%. Since this offsels the inherent exponential improvements that existed before that 1000 mit will now result in a similar reduction of damage taken no matter who receives it. I.E. it may take you are resisting 30% if damage it may take you to 40%, a 15% reduction in damage taken. If you are resisting 65% it may take you to 70%, which is also a 15% reduction in damage taken.
On the stats, they actually upped the top end benefit you could obtain by being at the cap at the cap, but at the same time made that cap a lot higher and harder to reach. They also implemented diminishing returns here. This means that people with modest gear actually benefited, people who obtain the best raid gear also benefit. The people min/maxing their gear so they sat right at the old caps to a modest hit, however. The effect is that there is a steady progression in the effectiveness of treasured legendary fabled gear, where before there was huge gap between treasured legendary and almost no gap between legendary and fabled.
There have actually been a few, i think one big one then another more quietly placed second one then many small ones that still show up today.
You can read the one guys post for the dev post quoting but you may want to know a few other things that are prevailent.
avoidence was the big one, as you see about the easy capped stats, it wasn't gear that bothered them it was the spell buffs, potions and bugs that was the problem.
so take your plate tank that tanks using mitigation, ok mitigation is already high a few buffs later and its insanely high. Now the avoidence of a plate tank is pretty low but some group buffs, some stacking potions and clicky rings that could stack other stats on top of that made a gaurdian bullet proof and basically avoiding hits like Neo from the matrix.
so they nerf the way agi worked, this hurt the plate tanks in the immunity department but they still do quite well.
Monks on the otherhand took the shaft on that revamp since we didnt have mit to back us up during the agi nerf ........ our tanking got harder for a bit till they later put in the varible of deflection but this still hasnt made brawlers a viable tank against hard hitting mobs.
spells took some changes, i cant complain here becuase my necro was so screwed up at launch anything would of helped. Necros met the big nerf stick a month or so after predators got blind sided by it. in my opinion though both needed to be toned down for the sake of thier utility/dps.
there was also a proc situation handled, ide refer you to the eq2 forums, the number crunchers there can explain it far better then i. bassically they made procs go off less and this made people mad.
one thing you will notice alot in eq2's history is mob combat changes. they put stuff out there and people have a hard time with it so the mobs are changed to hit softer/slower and have less resist and hp.
In summary with out writting a book over eq2's changes, the game changes in truth daily ....... im not talkin more content of levels and itemization ect im talking about combat, spells and abilities, balance of characters balance of mobs towards characters ect. I dont think the designers are really concrete about decisions for this game in terms of its mechanics, i think they put something out there and see what happens then change as need be. In all aspects eq2 looks more like an experiment for sonys number crunchers and marketers more then for the gamers enjoyment.