Undocumented cast, reuse and recovery speed adjustments?

[Lemilla]

<p>As of yesterdays game update, there has been a general nerf to the way cast speed, reuse speed and recovery speed adjustments work.</p><p>Previously, the formula was: time = base / (1 + %adjustment) - adjustment; capped at a 50% reduction.%adjustment would be things like ability casting speed, while adjustment would be AA that reduce the time by a number of seconds.</p><p>Currently, the formula is time = (base - adjustment) x (1 - %adjustment / 2)</p><p>This is a double nerf. Making the %adjustment lineair is a nerf to anyone who is not at either 0% speed or 100% speed. Making the adjustment apply before the %adjustment means the %adjustment reduces the effectiveness of the adjustment.</p><p>This graph shows the first nerf, with the formula being made lineair. For a spell with a base cast time of 1 second it shows the actual cast time on the vertical axis for the percentile cast speed on the horizontal axis.</p><p><img src="http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/8701/nerf1.png" width="481" height="289" /></p><p>This graph shows the second nerf. This shows the change of making second reductions apply before percentile reductions instead of after. This is with a 0.2s adjustment on a spell with a base cast speed of 1 second.</p><p><img src="http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/9550/nerf2.png" /></p><p>And this grapth shows the two nerfs combined. As can be easily seen, this is a huge nerf.</p><p><img src="http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/324/nerf12.png" width="481" height="289" /></p><p>Is there any explanation of why this change was made?</p>

[Banditman]

<p>There is ALSO a nasty bug that sometimes occurs when your casting speed gets to ridiculous levels whereby it resets to ZERO.  This used to happen a lot in Shard of Hate on the Sisters, but we were seeing it intermittently last night in Spire of Rage.</p>

[Nevao]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>There is ALSO a nasty bug that sometimes occurs when your casting speed gets to ridiculous levels whereby it resets to ZERO.  This used to happen a lot in Shard of Hate on the Sisters, but we were seeing it intermittently last night in Spire of Rage.</p></blockquote><p>Hmmm... that explains a lot. I thought I was getting "new release" lag (i.e. more people than usual logging in) but was definitely noticing something.</p>

[threat111]

<p><cite>Nevao wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>There is ALSO a nasty bug that sometimes occurs when your casting speed gets to ridiculous levels whereby it resets to ZERO.  This used to happen a lot in Shard of Hate on the Sisters, but we were seeing it intermittently last night in Spire of Rage.</p></blockquote><p>Hmmm... that explains a lot. I thought I was getting <strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">"server hardware can't support the player base</span></em></strong><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">"</span></em></strong> lag (i.e. they collect as much money as possible and spend the absolute bare minimum to keep people from quitting) but was definitely noticing something.</p></blockquote><p>fixxed</p>

[Nrgy]

<p><cite>Cerium@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Nevao wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>There is ALSO a nasty bug that sometimes occurs when your casting speed gets to ridiculous levels whereby it resets to ZERO.  This used to happen a lot in Shard of Hate on the Sisters, but we were seeing it intermittently last night in Spire of Rage.</p></blockquote><p>Hmmm... that explains a lot. I thought I was getting <strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">"server hardware can't support the player base</span></em></strong><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">"</span></em></strong> lag (i.e. they collect as much money as possible and spend the absolute bare minimum to keep people from quitting) but was definitely noticing something.</p></blockquote><p>fixxed</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=501013" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=501013</a></p><p>[Removed for Content], you're goning to need a new one-liner!</p>

[carpe_caminus]

<p>Would love to hear a dev response to this.</p>

[Proxopid]

<p><cite>carpe_caminus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Would love to hear a dev response to this.</p></blockquote><p>Seconded.</p>

[thegriss]

<p><cite>Proxopid wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>carpe_caminus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Would love to hear a dev response to this.</p></blockquote><p>Seconded.</p></blockquote><p>It was reported the patch on 4/15 broke the crit chance debuff on beneficial spells in raid zones like TORZ EM. Causing healers using reactive based healing spells to need 320% crit chance to crit 100% of the time on reactives.  Today 6/01 over 45 days later Kander said he is going to forward the info to the raid Dev.  It is obvious the raid dev doesnt read the forums or he would have been aware of this a long time ago.  </p><p>Good luck getting this new issue looked at.  We should have some info on a fix by GU61.</p>

[Ge'Sar]

<p>Who the hell isn't capped anyway?</p>

[thegriss]

<p><cite>GeSar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>who the hell isn't capped anyway?</blockquote><p>In nearly full EM and x2 raid gear my Inq is not at his reuse cap.  Cast speed yes but reuse no.</p><p>I noticed this last night because I had to switch to healing stance a few times which is never usally the case.</p>

[Dahmer]

<p>This is mostly affecting healers (in a big way) Gesar because we are not capped on reuse.</p><p>I am fully adorned for reuse with a mix of EZ mod/HM gear and as a templar i am not nearly at capped.</p><p>It looks like this may be a bug similar to off hand MA issue.</p><p>However~ I would love to hear a response from a dev, and hopefully we will get a quickfix tomorrow along with the off hand problem.</p>

[Undorett]

<p><cite>thegriss wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>GeSar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>who the hell isn't capped anyway?</blockquote><p>In nearly full EM and x2 raid gear my Inq is not at his reuse cap.  Cast speed yes but reuse no.</p><p>I noticed this last night because I had to switch to healing stance a few times which is never usally the case.</p></blockquote><p>and scouts, and fighters...why was this change made?</p>

[Terrius]

Still no red name? Would be nice even if they just dropped in to say oops or working as intended. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Ryai]

Interesting. So SOE effectively made all second reduction aas/adorns completely useless. 100% cast speed/reuse trumps all now. Good job SOE.

[Seduce]

<p>Seriously want a response to this... Unacceptable!</p>

[Nevao]

<p>I'm honestly surprised we haven't heard anything on this. The silence is starting to make this look intentional instead of accidental. That or something leaked early and they don't want to give it away by commenting.</p>

[Drumstix]

<p>Probably should have been linear from day one. Makes more sense for percentage based stats IMO.</p>

[Juravael]

<p>amazing.</p>

[Ryai]

<p><cite>Nevao wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm honestly surprised we haven't heard anything on this. The silence is starting to make this look intentional instead of accidental. That or something leaked early and they don't want to give it away by commenting.</p></blockquote><p>This is an alteration of a basic equation. There's nothing unintentional about rearranging a + and * and (). That's a deliberate change or there would be all sorts of ridiculous results like reuse of spells being instant.</p><p>MA not working offhands? Crit bonus getting nuked on PvP servers? Thats unintentional.</p><p>The players are SMARTER than you. At least acknowledge the change and don't act like it didn't happen. Nobody really cares(Well, some people will rage and be upset. /shrug) if its going to stay that way or not, but we need confirmation so we can gear for this change.</p>

[profe]

<p>As much as it may feel like a nerf, it makes "adjustment" AA valuable again.</p>

[Lemilla]

<p>Not really Profe. It makes it so you need more of it for the same effect, making it seem like it's helping more whle it's actually doing less. And if you are close to or at 100% cast/reuse speed, it's still just as useless.</p>

[slippery]

This hits my Guardian really hard. There is a noticable difference, especially over the long term, when suddenly everything takes .05 longer to cast, and longer to recover. Basically every 10 seconds I lost an ability, and have to be even more careful about auto attacks. It's just going to make my auto attack/proc dps an even larger portion of my dps and my already pathetic ca's even less of it.

[steelbadger]

<p><cite>Drumstixx@Blackburrow wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Probably should have been linear from day one. Makes more sense for percentage based stats IMO.</p></blockquote><p>Well, mathematically speaking, it makes no sense whatsoever.</p><p>If person A runs a race in 100 seconds while Person B runs a race in 66 seconds then person B has run that race 50% faster than person A (1/1.5 * 100 = 66).  They did NOT run 66% faster (The new system).</p><p>That's how percentages work, if you're going to mess with that then you have to stop calling them percentages and make them simple mods.  Because this is no longer a percentage based stat if it doesn't work by the common rules of percentages.</p>

[Drumstix]

<p><cite>steelbadger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Drumstixx@Blackburrow wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Probably should have been linear from day one. Makes more sense for percentage based stats IMO.</p></blockquote><p>Well, mathematically speaking, it makes no sense whatsoever.</p><p>If person A runs a race in 100 seconds while Person B runs a race in 66 seconds then person B has run that race 50% faster than person A (1/1.5 * 100 = 66).  They did NOT run 66% faster (The new system).</p><p>That's how percentages work, if you're going to mess with that then you have to stop calling them percentages and make them simple mods.  Because this is no longer a percentage based stat if it doesn't work by the common rules of percentages.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not really sure what you're getting at. If half of a total number is a 100% increase in speed (such as 100 seconds), then a 50% increase would be 25 seconds faster. That would be 75 seconds, not 66 seconds. 66 seconds would be 68% faster than 100.</p><p>I'm not sure why that doesn't make sense. I realize this is a nerf of sorts, considering the game's content wasn't adjusted to fit. But I still think a linear percentage system makes more sense.</p>

[Nevao]

<p>From the patch notes this morning (which while are up I don't think the patch has actually been pushed yet, I did not download anything and my MA was still off)</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;"><em>Fixed an exploit with the spell casting speed, reuse, and recovery formulas. The formula has been changed to be a linear growth granting 1% gain for every 2% of the mod given resulting in a cap of 50% when any of these modifiers are at 100%.</em></span></p><p>If there's always been a cap in place of 1/2 of the original value I'm not sure I understand how there was an "exploit". Stats worked a certain way, now they want them to work a different way. Annoying as hell since I believe that formula has been in place since KoS, but that's their call.</p><p>I wonder if they are going to revisit any existing abilities like Dance of Metal that were time limit to get x effect and tweak them. Or are we just going to get thrown under the bus in the name of "exploit fixing".</p>

[Proxopid]

<p>I wonder if the devs realize the entire ramifications of changing this curve. It's a fact that this lowers the actual casting and reuse and recovery numbers on everyone but those who are at 0% or 100%.</p><p>Just from the perspective of a Monk, this means extremely reduced survivability overall - a high increase in reuse on all the long-recast temporary abilities like Tsunami, Bob&Weave, Brawler's Tenacity, Will of the Heavens, Provoking Stance, Inner Focus, Outward Tranquility, etc etc... Monks will also have even less time to hit the Combination aa Ability now thanks to the increased recovery times. This will also affect auto attack timing.</p><p>I'm sure what I listed there hits every class just as much - an inq I know already complained about her self-cc-cure having increased from 45 secs to 58 secs reuse.</p><p>The lower you are on the curve (i.e. the lower your stats), the more you lose.  This means that fighters and scouts are probably hit the hardest by this, and casual players in general.</p><p>In my personal opinion this is a much worse hit than - as an example - the fighter heal crit nerf last year. Not only does it affect everybody, it also affects every playstyle - not just some people in raid gear soloing heroic instances. But it is the same type of cracking nuts with a sledgehammer, although this sledgehammer has the size of a tank.</p>

[Cannibalize]

<p>So basiclly what they're saying is the new cap is 200% of cast/recov/reuse to bring us back to original values prior to this "nerf".</p><p>Since they have no where to go with new gear except bonus/pot/cast/recov/reuse/crit mit.</p>

[Nevao]

<p><cite>Cannibalize@Permafrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So basiclly what they're saying is the new cap is 200% of cast/recov/reuse to bring us back to original values prior to this "nerf".</p><p>Since they have no where to go with new gear except bonus/pot/cast/recov/reuse/crit mit.</p></blockquote><p>No, you never could get 100% reduction. It was always capped at 50% reduction. So it stays the same end result with 100% casting/reuse/recovery, but the path along the way is now more linear.</p>

[Karelyn]

<p><cite>Drumstixx@Blackburrow wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Probably should have been linear from day one. Makes more sense for percentage based stats IMO.</p></blockquote><p>The old system was essentially linear in terms of spells cast/dps increase.</p><p>Suppose you have a spell that takes one second to cast (and has no reuse/recovery for simplicity) then you can cast it 10 times in 10 seconds.</p><p>With the old system a 20% increase of cast speed would mean that cast time and recovery time would both be 1/1.2 = 0.83333</p><p>Allowing you to cast 10/(0.8333) times per 10 seconds , which is 12 times in 10 seconds , or a 20% increase in spells cast for a 20% increase in cast speed.</p><p>With the new system a 20% increase of cast speed equates to a 90% multiplier to cast time , which gives a cast time of 0.9 seconds.</p><p>This allows you to cast 10/(0.9) times per 10 seconds , which is 11.1 times in 10 seconds , or a 11% increase in spells cast for a 20% increase in cast speed.</p>

[kahonen]

<p>How was this possibly an exploit?  They provide gear to equip and a mechanism to use it, totally miscalculate how that mechanism (and the formula behind it) will work and then justify nerfing it by calling it an exploit!</p><p>Remarkable!  Given the recent debacle with the servers, SOE don't seem to be going out of their way to impress the customers they managed to retain!  Combine this mega-nerf with the clearlyl inadequate/incomplete testing of some of the GU60 changes to end-game content and it's SOE back to business as usual!  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" /><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" /><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" /><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" /><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" /></p>

[thegriss]

<p>My Inq has sufferd from this nerf pretty hard.  As it was bad enough to try to balance everything around using DPS stance and melee while solo healing my caster group.  Last night I noticed a huge loss of dps because of the fact I had to spend much more time managing my rotations.</p><p>SOE you balanced the entire game around the Pre gu 60 cast/resuse/recovery speed formula.  Now you come back and say its was a mistake?  YOU BALANCED AROUND THOSE NUMBERS.  All you have done is made all content harder at every level of play with this so called "Fix"</p>

[Leucippus]

<p>The hard cap should be changed to ((base - adjustment) / 2) instead of the current ((base) / 2).</p><p>Doing so would make the AA choices that affect times directly meaningful. As it is now, those AA are completely meaningless in the end game; i.e. nearly everyone is capped at 100% casting speed (or recovery speed, to a lesser extent).</p><p>Another way of looking at having the cap not affected by the AA choices.</p><p>Currently, an AA choice has 100% effectiveness, with no gear. That same AA choice has 0% effectiveness with gear.</p><p>If the cap were changed to (base - adjustment) / 2, then an AA choice will still  have 100% effectiveness, with no gear. However, that same AA choice would now have 50% effectiveness with gear. On gear, direct adjustment effects are a rare exception, limited mostly to focus effects.</p><p>A similar way calculating the cap would be to apply all AA adjustments before calculating the cap. Equipment choices would be a bit simpler if AA choices were independent from equipment choices.</p><p>Also, for reference, with the way the formula worked before this change, those "direct adjustment" AA choices had 100% effectiveness with no gear, 200% effectiveness with gear until the cap was reached, and then 0% effectiveness after the cap was reached. That situation is probably the reason this change was made.</p><p>Why is there a hard cap anyway? All the hard cap seems to be doing is complicating things.</p><p>There is another interesting occurance here... I am certain my wizard once had a cast time less than (base / 2) on solar flare, the wizard's "quick strike" spell. Although it was changed quickly after release, I believe there was a short time when these modifiers worked differently.</p><p> -Leucippus</p><p>p.s. the rational for calling the current formula an "exploit" escapes me... There has been much discussion about it since these modifiers have been added to the game.</p>

[mrp1247]

<p>Did anyone who was behind this nerf even consider what this does to scouts who have to cast so many ca's in so many seconds to get an ability to trigger? such as thieve's guild and dance of metal? this combined with the lack of offhand multi attack has put my brigand dps in the toilet.  I'm now only able to generate half the dps I was able to do pre gu60. Mob cast, recast and multi hasn't changed one bit. Put it back the way it was please.</p>

[Nevao]

<p><cite>Adaac@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Did anyone who was behind this nerf even consider what this does to scouts who have to cast so many ca's in so many seconds to get an ability to trigger? such as thieve's guild and dance of metal? this combined with the lack of offhand multi attack has put my brigand dps in the toilet.  I'm now only able to generate half the dps I was able to do pre gu60. Mob cast, recast and multi hasn't changed one bit. Put it back the way it was please.</p></blockquote><p>I doubt it, I was having serious problems getting the 8th hit off for Dance of Metal consistently and I'm on one of the upgrades servers (Oasis) so lag should not be an issue. I even have my abilities lined up perfectly so I can go straight down the line when DoM is up so I don't have to jump around.</p><p>Theoretically that should not be necessary. Even with no Casting/Recovery enhancements you should be able to get 8 abilities off in 10 seconds (or 11.2 for Brigs with the proper AA), but for some reason I was just not able to get that 8th hit off with any kind of consistency. Our Swash was in the same boat and I'm hearing rumblings of others having the same issue but no formal threads have kicked off on it. Almost makes me wonder if something is borked with the "correction" and it's adding time in additional time or something.</p>

[Kokotewa]

This /really/ hurts rogues with dance of metal or simple stun chains. I play a progression swashbuckler (60) and it is impossible to do a standard solo CA chain of Walk the plank->2 CAs of choice->cheapshot->CA->bootdagger->Shanghai->CA now, heck WTP->CA->Cheapshot->BD->Shanghai->CA is semi-difficult...but it makes one wonder what the hell all of the stuns were for, seeing as we got 3ish damage skills out of 3 setups...might as well just press keys randomly and get higher parses with it. Safer too, if you consider you now have the setup skills to interrupt potential threats.

[slippery]

<p>This was a really really dumb change that wasn't thought out. Has it occured to anyone on the dev team that this isn't just an "oh hey lets change how that works so it might make more sense" change? That is something that can have major ramifications on class balance, because it effects every single person differently. This isn't the kind of change that you just throw out there willy nilly and don't tell people about until later when they already caught because everything is slower. Especially in the age of Auto Attack being such a massively drastic part of some classes parses, when this change is going to hit melee the hardest because they don't get much cast speed.</p><p>This needs to be reverted, and done with a lot more thought about how it impacts classes.</p>

[carpe_caminus]

<p>On my fury the difference is huge.  My main nuke alone went from being capped at 7.5s reuse, to now 8.7s reuse with my current gear.  That's a really big difference in the grand scheme of things, and it also means pretty much anything else I'd had capped is now a second or more longer reuse...</p><p>This is a big nerf.  And I fail to see the "exploit" that was supposedly "fixed" by this nerf.</p>

[slippery]

I already run out of CA's all the time on my Guardian, and now the reuse is even longer. Pretty awesome. Not to mention that now all my saves aren't up as much. Your formula isn't working, you jacked it up somewhere. I lost 15 seconds on the reuse of Tower of Stone. I used to be at 1m3s and now I'm at 1m18s. Has all this impact on dps, and even larger on survivability even occurred to anyone? I just can't get over how ridiculous this change is.

[carpe_caminus]

<p><cite>slippery wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I already run out of CA's all the time on my Guardian, and now the reuse is even longer. Pretty awesome. Not to mention that now all my saves aren't up as much. Your formula isn't working, you jacked it up somewhere. I lost 15 seconds on the reuse of Tower of Stone. I used to be at 1m3s and now I'm at 1m18s. Has all this impact on dps, and even larger on survivability even occurred to anyone? I just can't get over how ridiculous this change is.</blockquote><p>Well it's certainly impacting survivability in the reuse of spells like Porcupine and Natural Cleanse.  Like I said, this nerf is huge.  It's going to effect practically everything for anyone who doesn't already have 100% to both reuse and cast speed.</p>

[carpe_caminus]

<p><cite>Nevao wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>From the patch notes this morning (which while are up I don't think the patch has actually been pushed yet, I did not download anything and my MA was still off)</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;"><em>Fixed an exploit with the spell casting speed, reuse, and recovery formulas. The formula has been changed to be a linear growth granting 1% gain for every 2% of the mod given resulting in a cap of 50% when any of these modifiers are at 100%.</em></span></p><p>If there's always been a cap in place of 1/2 of the original value I'm not sure I understand how there was an "exploit". Stats worked a certain way, now they want them to work a different way. Annoying as hell since I believe that formula has been in place since KoS, but that's their call.</p><p>I wonder if they are going to revisit any existing abilities like Dance of Metal that were time limit to get x effect and tweak them. Or are we just going to get thrown under the bus in the name of "exploit fixing".</p></blockquote><p>Where are you reading those patch notes?  I don't see them anywhere.</p>

[slippery]

I can't believe you guys really took straight reductions out before % reductions. Why the hell should I ever take a straight reduction to anything now if I can't cap the ability without 100% cast/reuse/recover anyways? Do you know what kind of impact this has? That tower of Stone I mentioned in my previous post? This alone screwed me out of 9.08 seconds reuse on Tower of stone. Lets put it this way for you, because you clearly didn't think this through even remotely. That 20 second reuse I get from AA? Yea, it really isn't even remotely 20 seconds any more, because LOL LETS CHANGE THE FORMULA. Now that AA actually only reduces my reuse 10.92 seconds. You know what is best? Lets say I get 20% more reuse. You know what difference I get? Now my 20 second AA now only gives me 6.92 seconds actual reduction. Wow. Amazing. Such an AA worth taking. With such clear statement of what it does. Cool story guys. Clearly one of the most thought out changes you've ever pushed.........................

[Brildean]

<p>Dev Team can you now put ability cast speed, reuse and recovery on all fighter and scout armor.. There should be a way for fighters to get to get close to the reuse cap. as now half our aa abilities are useless due to the new equation. </p><p>Also check out  class foci these are now not worth the foci as they will not really reduce anything. or allow you to get to the minimum reuse.</p>

[Geothe]

<p>Someone deserves a nice kick in the head for this one.Who ever thought that this was a good change must have a complete inability to actually THINK ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES of a change to such a basal game mechanic!</p><p>Especially making such changes without allowing players to actually TEST them to show you how moronic of a change it truely is.</p><p>Once again, the LIVE servers are testing dev f-ups.  Oh joy!</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Strait reductions should be cap neutral.  So if a spell has a 90 second recast, and I have AA's to reduce it by 30 seconds, those AA's should apply fully always.</p><p>So, with the AA's and no re-use at all, I get a 60 second recast.  With 50% re-use and the AA's I get a 45 second recast, and with the AA's and 100% re-use, I get a 30 second recast.</p><p>That might begin to offset this mess.</p>

[Ryai]

HAHAHA AN EXPLOIT? SINCE !@#$!@$% LAUNCH! Cut the BS.

[Nevao]

<p><cite>carpe_caminus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Nevao wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>From the patch notes this morning (which while are up I don't think the patch has actually been pushed yet, I did not download anything and my MA was still off)</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;"><em>Fixed an exploit with the spell casting speed, reuse, and recovery formulas. The formula has been changed to be a linear growth granting 1% gain for every 2% of the mod given resulting in a cap of 50% when any of these modifiers are at 100%.</em></span></p><p>If there's always been a cap in place of 1/2 of the original value I'm not sure I understand how there was an "exploit". Stats worked a certain way, now they want them to work a different way. Annoying as hell since I believe that formula has been in place since KoS, but that's their call.</p><p>I wonder if they are going to revisit any existing abilities like Dance of Metal that were time limit to get x effect and tweak them. Or are we just going to get thrown under the bus in the name of "exploit fixing".</p></blockquote><p>Where are you reading those patch notes?  I don't see them anywhere.</p></blockquote><p>I copied it off the patcher this morning. <a href="http://eq2wire.com/2011/06/02/june-2-2011-update-notes/" target="_blank">EQ2Wire </a>has the full list up as well.</p>

[Ryai]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Strait reductions should be cap neutral.  So if a spell has a 90 second recast, and I have AA's to reduce it by 30 seconds, those AA's should apply fully always.</p><p>So, with the AA's and no re-use at all, I get a 60 second recast.  With 50% re-use and the AA's I get a 45 second recast, and with the AA's and 100% re-use, I get a 30 second recast.</p><p>That might begin to offset this mess.</p></blockquote><p>All direct time reductions should be dropped. Just change them to %'s, so they actually have the intended effect they were supposed to in concert with ability reuse.</p><p>The equation to figure it out isn't hard... (Original Recast-Reduction from AA/Adorn)/(Original Recast)*100=% Reuse gained from the ability.</p><p>Seriously. The ignoring of the changes OBVIOUS to the playerbase with ZERO feedback is just another example of appalling development. At least acknowledge it and explain why this was needed. This is a MASSIVE gamewide nerf.</p>

[carpe_caminus]

<p><cite>Cyan@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Strait reductions should be cap neutral.  So if a spell has a 90 second recast, and I have AA's to reduce it by 30 seconds, those AA's should apply fully always.</p><p>So, with the AA's and no re-use at all, I get a 60 second recast.  With 50% re-use and the AA's I get a 45 second recast, and with the AA's and 100% re-use, I get a 30 second recast.</p><p>That might begin to offset this mess.</p></blockquote><p>All direct time reductions should be dropped. Just change them to %'s, so they actually have the intended effect they were supposed to in concert with ability reuse.</p><p>The equation to figure it out isn't hard... (Original Recast-Reduction from AA/Adorn)/(Original Recast)*100=% Reuse gained from the ability.</p><p>Seriously. The ignoring of the changes OBVIOUS to the playerbase with ZERO feedback is just another example of appalling development. At least acknowledge it and explain why this was needed. This is a MASSIVE gamewide nerf.</p></blockquote><p>I'm loving the suggestion that this is because of some "exploit".  Clearly everyone has been exploiting reuse mod since it was put in the game.</p>

[Necroponic]

<p>First of all SOE, you picked horrible timeing for this lame stealth nef.  You welcome back package from the down time was weak and did not compinsate raiders at all. Now you have the nervel to fix a so called exploit that has been going on for years  under the guise of a patch which appears to be a slight dmg buff to most classes at first but ends up being a nerf too all healers and mages [Removed for Content] [Removed for Content] [Removed for Content]. Rather lame way of fixing your mistake and IMO and many other gamers opinions YOU OWE US and this nerf is totaly bogus. FIX US ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>

[Ryai]

<p><cite>Necroponic wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>First of all SOE, you picked horrible timeing for this lame stealth nef.  You welcome back package from the down time was weak and did not compinsate raiders at all. Now you have the nervel to fix a so called exploit that has been going on for years  under the guise of a patch which appears to be a slight dmg buff to most classes at first but ends up being a nerf too all healers and mages [Removed for Content] [Removed for Content] [Removed for Content]. Rather lame way of fixing your mistake and IMO and many other gamers opinions YOU OWE US and this nerf is totaly bogus. FIX US ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p></blockquote><p>Scouts and fighters are hit way harder by this actually. Its much, much harder for them to get good reuse. Healers too.</p><p>Also, change the white reuse adorn to ability, spell reuse is dumb.</p>

[Kokotewa]

Went ahead and called EQII customer support; they're going to forward the complaint to the EQII Game GM team who should hopefully then forward it to development. so...yeah. Let me know when swashbucklers/brigands are playable again.

[thegriss]

<p><cite>Kokotewa wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Went ahead and called EQII customer support; they're going to forward the complaint to the EQII Game GM team who should hopefully then forward it to development. so...yeah. Let me know when swashbucklers/brigands are playable again.</blockquote><p>They already gave us and answer.  The added a crap load of content that 90% of there player base cant touch and nerfed cast/reuse/recovery under the guise of and "Exploit" fix.  What they have done in GU is put enough content gates and nerfs to keep players busy till the next expansion.  Devs knew this new nerf would hinder ever single player in the game and they slid it through without a mention.  They got busted and tried to cover there tracks with some lame excuse.  Just admit it makes your jobs easier if you nerf you player base because it makes us all work longer on the same content.</p><p>Really sad, GU 60 even for a raider like myself is making me thing SOE has no idea how to run there game.</p>

[Zoltaroth]

<p>This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.</p><p>EDIT:</p><p>So here is the deal on this bug:</p><p>The way the math worked, a negative casting speed % would have always caused you to cast at MAX cast length.  So even at -1% casting speed a 10 second spell would have taken 15s to cast.  When we fixed this formula, we flattened out the curve which caused the difference in casting speeds below 100%, this was unintentional. </p><p>We have gone back and changed the formula in the following ways:</p><p>1) Casting Speed increases will work the same as before GU60.</p><p>2) Reuse and Recovery will once again apply adders *after* multipliers.</p><p>3) Additionally: Casting Speed will also now apply adders *after* multipliers (this was not the case before) so you should see a slight *increase* in casting speed compared to pre-GU60 numbers.</p><p>4) Negative Casting speed debuffs will now apply the correct amount of increases instead of max increase at all times.</p><p>Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope this post helps explain a little better what is going on.  Currently we are shooting for a hotfix of this tomorrow morning (not 100% certain we can do this yet but we are working on it now).</p>

[Kokotewa]

<p>Yay thank you <3</p>

[Dahmer]

<p>That's awesome!</p><p>Thank you!! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Nevao]

<p><cite>Zoltaroth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.</p></blockquote><p>Zoltaroth, thank you for responding, but can we get a more detailed explanation of what is really going on. This is far to vague for the ruckus it has caused. The numbers are going back to 'Pre-GU' values, but you were obviously trying to accomplish something. What was that? What is actually intended?</p>

[Zoltaroth]

<p><cite>Nevao wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Zoltaroth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.</p></blockquote><p>Zoltaroth, thank you for responding, but can we get a more detailed explanation of what is really going on. This is far to vague for the ruckus it has caused. The numbers are going back to 'Pre-GU' values, but you were obviously trying to accomplish something. What was that? What is actually intended?</p></blockquote><p>See my edit, I explained it in some more detail for you.</p>

[Nevao]

<p><cite>Zoltaroth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Nevao wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Zoltaroth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.</p></blockquote><p>Zoltaroth, thank you for responding, but can we get a more detailed explanation of what is really going on. This is far to vague for the ruckus it has caused. The numbers are going back to 'Pre-GU' values, but you were obviously trying to accomplish something. What was that? What is actually intended?</p></blockquote><p>See my edit, I explained it in some more detail for you.</p></blockquote><p>I think you were editing as I posted. My apologies.</p>

[Oxie]

<p><cite>Nevao wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This is far to vague for the ruckus it has caused.</p></blockquote><p>I had nothing to do with this! Blame SOE math, not me!</p><p><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/385970365b8ed7503b4294502a458efa.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Ryai]

<p><cite>Zoltaroth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>See my edit, I explained it in some more detail for you.</p></blockquote><p>Thanks very much for this.</p>

[carpe_caminus]

<p><cite>Zoltaroth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.</p><p>EDIT:</p><p>So here is the deal on this bug:</p><p>The way the math worked, a negative casting speed % would have always caused you to cast at MAX cast length.  So even at -1% casting speed a 10 second spell would have taken 15s to cast.  When we fixed this formula, we flattened out the curve which caused the difference in casting speeds below 100%, this was unintentional. </p><p>We have gone back and changed the formula in the following ways:</p><p>1) Casting Speed increases will work the same as before GU60.</p><p>2) Reuse and Recovery will once again apply adders *after* multipliers.</p><p>3) Additionally: Casting Speed will also now apply adders *after* multipliers (this was not the case before) so you should see a slight *increase* in casting speed compared to pre-GU60 numbers.</p><p>4) Negative Casting speed debuffs will now apply the correct amount of increases instead of max increase at all times.</p><p>Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope this post helps explain a little better what is going on.  Currently we are shooting for a hotfix of this tomorrow morning (not 100% certain we can do this yet but we are working on it now).</p></blockquote><p>Ok now that actually makes sense.  That bug has been in for a LONG time.  At least since 2008, since that's when people were using the then-new Ring of Rage to max cast speed.  Thank you for the updated info and specifying what the actual goal of the change was.</p>

[Lemilla]

<p>Thanks Zoltaroth for the reply, and for making sure this issue is getting fixed.</p>

[Proxopid]

<p>Thank you, Zoltaroth.</p>

[Hamervelder]

<p><cite>Zoltaroth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Nevao wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Zoltaroth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.</p></blockquote><p>Zoltaroth, thank you for responding, but can we get a more detailed explanation of what is really going on. This is far to vague for the ruckus it has caused. The numbers are going back to 'Pre-GU' values, but you were obviously trying to accomplish something. What was that? What is actually intended?</p></blockquote><p>See my edit, I explained it in some more detail for you.</p></blockquote><p>Your post didn't seem to address a rather peculiar side effect.  I don't know the cause, but myself and some of my guildmates noticed tonight that our casting speed had decreased by about 25%, but only when in raid.  For instance, my casting speed, both in my raid group and self-buffed solo, is 71%. Yet in the raid, my group cure took 1.27 seconds to cast, and when solo, took 1.01 seconds to cast.  The displayed casting speed in the persona window didn't change, but the actual casting speed did change, but only when in a raid.  When I grouped later in the evening, my casting speed was fine.</p>

[ranga]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Strait reductions should be cap neutral.  So if a spell has a 90 second recast, and I have AA's to reduce it by 30 seconds, those AA's should apply fully always.</p><p>So, with the AA's and no re-use at all, I get a 60 second recast.  With 50% re-use and the AA's I get a 45 second recast, and with the AA's and 100% re-use, I get a 30 second recast.</p><p>That might begin to offset this mess.</p></blockquote><p>This ^</p><p>If for nothing else, it would do what it says on the tin. Plus you would have the advantage that everyone would understand it.</p><p>The crazy thing is that the devs don't understand that if they want to mess about with stuff, it should NOT be the mechanics, it should be the base numbers. If they feel a nerf is required, it should be done to the base AA or the item stats. Then we would be able to make informed decisions on which items to use or which aa lines to max.</p><p>Edit....of course the above assumes that the mechanics actually work in the first place.</p><p>Just read Zolt's explanation which seems fine on the face of it but for future reference, please do not tout bug fixes as exploit fixes. One <em>might</em> negate the other but that is not always the case.</p>

[Fendaria]

<p><cite>Zoltaroth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.</p><p>EDIT:</p><p>So here is the deal on this bug:</p><p>The way the math worked, a negative casting speed % would have always caused you to cast at MAX cast length.  So even at -1% casting speed a 10 second spell would have taken 15s to cast.  When we fixed this formula, we flattened out the curve which caused the difference in casting speeds below 100%, this was unintentional. </p><p>We have gone back and changed the formula in the following ways:</p><p>1) Casting Speed increases will work the same as before GU60.</p><p>2) Reuse and Recovery will once again apply adders *after* multipliers.</p><p>3) Additionally: Casting Speed will also now apply adders *after* multipliers (this was not the case before) so you should see a slight *increase* in casting speed compared to pre-GU60 numbers.</p><p>4) Negative Casting speed debuffs will now apply the correct amount of increases instead of max increase at all times.</p><p>Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope this post helps explain a little better what is going on.  Currently we are shooting for a hotfix of this tomorrow morning (not 100% certain we can do this yet but we are working on it now).</p></blockquote><p>What is a casting speed, reuse, or recovery multiplier?</p><p>And I assume you haven't changed the caps as well?  (ex at 100% casting speed + AAs that reduce casting speed by a fixed amount still cap out at (base ability casting speed/2) )</p><p>Fendaria</p>

[Hamervelder]

<p>Did the "fix" go in today?  If so, then it's still a nerf vs pre-GU60.  I'll use my group cures as an example again.  My group cures took 1.01 seconds to cast before GU60.  Now, they take 1.16 seconds to cast.  In addition, recast on my group cures used to be 12.5 seconds.  Recast is now 13.2 seconds.  That may not seem like much of an increase, but it certainly is.  The time needed to cast my spells has increased by 15%.  That's massive.  That, combined with the 0.7 extra seconds of reuse on my group cures adds almost a second to the total cycle time.  That's unacceptable.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></p>

[RogueSpideyChick]

<p><cite>Elhonas@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Did the "fix" go in today?  If so, then it's still a nerf vs pre-GU60.  I'll use my group cures as an example again.  My group cures took 1.01 seconds to cast before GU60.  Now, they take 1.16 seconds to cast.  In addition, recast on my group cures used to be 12.5 seconds.  Recast is now 13.2 seconds.  That may not seem like much of an increase, but it certainly is.  The time needed to cast my spells has increased by 15%.  That's massive.  That, combined with the 0.7 extra seconds of reuse on my group cures adds almost a second to the total cycle time.  That's unacceptable.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>not sure what ur seeing but my fury's r back to normal. at 102.2 cast speed, 48.4 ability reuse & 8 spell reuse, my group cure is capped at 1 sec & reuse at 12.8. after the update, shell, porcupine & rw cure had over 10 sec added onto the reuse (depending on which spell it was), now theyre all back to normal (pre-gu60).</p>

[technologically]

<p><cite>Zoltaroth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.</p><p>EDIT:</p><p>So here is the deal on this bug:</p><p>The way the math worked, a negative casting speed % would have always caused you to cast at MAX cast length.  So even at -1% casting speed a 10 second spell would have taken 15s to cast.  When we fixed this formula, we flattened out the curve which caused the difference in casting speeds below 100%, this was unintentional. </p></blockquote><p>Can you help me understand how you could do work on a fundamental game mechanic, and have it pushed to the live servers without noticing this? </p><p>I'm glad you guys are fixing this problem, and went through the pain of submitting yet another hot fix, but what I'm really hoping for is that in addition to fixing the code, you are addressing the exploit in your testing system that allowed this bug to be pushed to live.</p><p>I'm not trying to place any blame for the mistake in your math; formulas with negative curves are not fun. We all joke about live members paying you for the privilage of testing your code, but from this incident it would seem that you do zero automated testing of any kind.  Do you really not run automated scripts of characters with multiple levels of gear and a preset cast order to compare damage or heal output before and after any changes? Let alone fundamental mechanic coding? </p>

[Nevao]

<p><cite>technologically wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Zoltaroth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This was an unintentional side effect of a small bug fix.  We are working on getting this changed back to pre-GU numbers.</p><p>EDIT:</p><p>So here is the deal on this bug:</p><p>The way the math worked, a negative casting speed % would have always caused you to cast at MAX cast length.  So even at -1% casting speed a 10 second spell would have taken 15s to cast.  When we fixed this formula, we flattened out the curve which caused the difference in casting speeds below 100%, this was unintentional. </p></blockquote><p>Can you help me understand how you could do work on a fundamental game mechanic, and have it pushed to the live servers without noticing this? </p><p>I'm glad you guys are fixing this problem, and went through the pain of submitting yet another hot fix, but what I'm really hoping for is that in addition to fixing the code, you are addressing the exploit in your testing system that allowed this bug to be pushed to live.</p><p>I'm not trying to place any blame for the mistake in your math; formulas with negative curves are not fun. We all joke about live members paying you for the privilage of testing your code, but from this incident it would seem that you do zero automated testing of any kind.  Do you really not run automated scripts of characters with multiple levels of gear and a preset cast order to compare damage or heal output before and after any changes? Let alone fundamental mechanic coding? </p></blockquote><p>The problem was this was pushed to Test, but without any notification. At the time I just assumed it was server lag giving me a bad night. Now I know better of course, but there was no reason to think otherwise since there were no test notes letting us know that there was any kind of stat change. If it had been posted we probably would have caught it.</p>

[Hamervelder]

<p><cite>Arica@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Elhonas@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Did the "fix" go in today?  If so, then it's still a nerf vs pre-GU60.  I'll use my group cures as an example again.  My group cures took 1.01 seconds to cast before GU60.  Now, they take 1.16 seconds to cast.  In addition, recast on my group cures used to be 12.5 seconds.  Recast is now 13.2 seconds.  That may not seem like much of an increase, but it certainly is.  The time needed to cast my spells has increased by 15%.  That's massive.  That, combined with the 0.7 extra seconds of reuse on my group cures adds almost a second to the total cycle time.  That's unacceptable.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>not sure what ur seeing but my fury's r back to normal. at 102.2 cast speed, 48.4 ability reuse & 8 spell reuse, my group cure is capped at 1 sec & reuse at 12.8. after the update, shell, porcupine & rw cure had over 10 sec added onto the reuse (depending on which spell it was), now theyre all back to normal (pre-gu60).</p></blockquote><p>The more of my guildmates that I ask, the more I think that my warden is at a spot on the curve (he's at 71% casting speed and 48% reuse) where he used to get a bigger benefit than he now does.  The only solution, I guess, is to get more casting speed, somehow.</p>

[technologically]

<p><cite>Nevao wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem was this was pushed to Test, but without any notification ...  If it had been posted we probably would have caught it.</p></blockquote><p>So the barrier of entry you are comfortable with for pushing patches to live is that they noted what they hoped their patch is doing, so that an untrained player on test server will "probably" catch an error in fundamental mechanics?  Even though they have complete knowledge of the mechanics and could run a monte carlo to test any formula changes they were considering before they even bothered to code them in?</p>

[Nevao]

<p><cite>technologically wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Nevao wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem was this was pushed to Test, but without any notification ...  If it had been posted we probably would have caught it.</p></blockquote><p>So the barrier of entry you are comfortable with for pushing patches to live is that they noted what they hoped their patch is doing, so that an untrained player on test server will "probably" catch an error in fundamental mechanics?  Even though they have complete knowledge of the mechanics and could run a monte carlo to test any formula changes they were considering before they even bothered to code them in?</p></blockquote><p>You're making assumptions that such things are easy for them to script test or that script testing is possible at all in their software. I think you are reaching in said assumptions and shouldn't be making them without knowing more about how they are setup. I have worked in software development long enough to know what I don't know and I'm not about to start telling someone how to automate their testing on something that I have no design specs for or basic understanding of the architecture and interfaces into it. If you feel you have intimate enough knowledge of their sytems to do so more power to you, but my guess is that you probably don't.</p><p>That said we can only work with the tools they give us, and the only way for us to use those tools properly is to be alerted to those changes. I think you sell the player base short. We may not catch a zone bug but they had announced that they were changing the casting/reuse/recovery formulas a slew of people would have taken a look know that it's a "fundemental mechanic".</p>