Need some clarification here about the 09/07 changes please.

[-Aonein-]

<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#ffcc00>*** Combat Changes ***<BR><BR></FONT>General changes:</STRONG><BR><FONT color=#ffff00>- Decreased in combat regen of health and power from 1% of max to a fixed value of 1pt / 10 levels (plus any granted from items/spells).<BR>- The base mitigation and avoidance on armor has been reduced.<BR></FONT>- Quality (Treasured, Legendary, Fabled, etc.) of armor no longer affects your chances to avoid attacks.<BR><FONT color=#ffff00>- Accessories no longer have any physical mitigation.<BR></FONT><FONT color=#ffff00>- The base parry has been reduced from 20% to 10%.<BR></FONT>- NPCs should progress more smoothly in difficulty from green through orange con.<BR><FONT color=#ffff00>- Small Group, Heroic, and Epic NPCs will now do more damage.</FONT><BR><FONT color=#ffff00>- The base mitigation value of kite and tower shields has been reduced to 10%.<BR></FONT>- The new level 50 to 60 abilities have been assigned their intended levels.<BR>- Charms should now function correctly. If the target cannot be charmed, the spell will not cast.<BR>- Beneficial maintained group spells and arts should now affect a greater area.<BR>- Pets can no longer attack NPCs that you cannot get to yourself.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <HR> </DIV> <DIV><A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=comtest&message.id=6833#M6833" target=_blank>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=comtest&message.id=6833#M6833</A></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Just wondering how that effects our HP regen in combat now.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Why the need to constantly down grade us, i mean here we have a pretty major change, we got base parry going from 20% to 10%, we have all types of group and Epic mobs doing more damage, we have all Accessories no longer adding mitigation vs pyhiscal, we got Kite / Tower shields lowered to a mere 10% mitigation? Hang on i thought shields offered avoidance.......????? We have a decrease to HP / Power in combat regen to 1 point every 10 lvls meaning 5 a tick at lvl 50, and to top it off we have a decrease to base mitigation and avoidance on armor????</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now, few questions, Kite / Tower shields have been adding to Avoidance since the change from AC to split value which is Mitigation / Avoidance well it wasnt then that it started adding to it, it was then that we seen it was adding to Avoidance and not Mitigation. Since when did they start making Shields add to Mitigation?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Whats going on with armor, decreasing the base mitigation and avoidance on armor? Since when did Mitigation on armor add too Mitigation and Avoidance, and since when was there a base value for each seperate peice of armor? Wasnt the point of spilting the old way which was the AC value which was a mix of avoidance and mitigation to stop us from being confused and having a better look at what the numbers were doing? I mean thats what we were told right...........im really not following this change, when i read it, it reads to me that there is a base mitigation number that we some how dont see and that each peice of armor still adds another mystical number of avoidance that we dont see which both are being adjusted.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Last question, why is there so much adjusting of players going downwards in a spiral and mobs climbing a ladder lately? These arent light changes, these are pretty big changes here and with 5 days to go its really not looking like much of a soild Beta / Test base you have here.....</DIV>

[Ravendarth]

<P>I'm at work so can only comment on a few of your concerns.... First don't take these changes in a vacum. You really have to understand (and try firsthand) the new system in it's entirity to understand what the daily changes truely mean. </P> <P> </P> <P>- The changes to mitigation and avoidance on armor refer to the already announced change top how armor will work. Can't find the actual Dev post right now but basically means as type of armor goes up (ie. very light, light, medium, heavy) your base avoidance goes down. This really shouldn't be new to anyone and this is just a small tweak to that change.</P> <P>- The change of damage by mobs is a direct result of people being able to solo heroic ^^^^ mobs. I would guess the parry change is also tied to this issue. I'm sorry but nobody should be able to solo a heroic ^^^^ mob.</P> <P>-Taking the mitigation from accesories was also announced a while back but they are just now making the change.</P> <P>Can't really comment on the combat regen until I can take a closer look to the differences to what it was before.</P>

[-Aonein-]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> sharpealec wrote:<BR> <P>I'm at work so can only comment on a few of your concerns.... First don't take these changes in a vacum. You really have to understand (and try firsthand) the new system in it's entirity to understand what the daily changes truely mean. </P> <P> </P> <P>- The changes to mitigation and avoidance on armor refer to the already announced change top how armor will work. Can't find the actual Dev post right now but basically means as type of armor goes up (ie. very light, light, medium, heavy) your base avoidance goes down. This really shouldn't be new to anyone and this is just a small tweak to that change.</P> <P>- The change of damage by mobs is a direct result of people being able to solo heroic ^^^^ mobs. I would guess the parry change is also tied to this issue. I'm sorry but nobody should be able to solo a heroic ^^^^ mob.</P> <P>-Taking the mitigation from accesories was also announced a while back but they are just now making the change.</P> <P>Can't really comment on the combat regen until I can take a closer look to the differences to what it was before.</P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Ok for starters i been reading the Devs posts relating the soloing of heroic mobs but they were <STRONG>^^^</STRONG> mobs not <STRONG>^^^^</STRONG> mobs.</P> <P>Secondly, only a select few of the player base, in other words only certain class's were able to solo these <STRONG>^^^</STRONG> mobs which results in a <STRONG><U>ENTIRE</U></STRONG> player base nerf just because of a certain class being able to solo said <STRONG>^^^</STRONG> mob instead of said class being nerfed down to the rest of the player base so he cant solo it just like the rest.</P> <P>If anyone is remotely interested in how these changes have acually effected the Beta and Test people that acually play on Beta and Test, read <A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=comtest&message.id=6834&view=by_date_ascending&page=1" target=_blank><STRONG><FONT color=#ff3300>this</FONT></STRONG></A> thread.</P>

[cr0wangel]

<P>Same question here, shields give avoidance and/or mitigiation? I am lost now.</P> <P>And even if people are saying the system is only being scaled down, I see this as a big nerf. We soak less damage, mobs do more.</P>

[cr0wangel]

<P>From Mooguard:</P> <P> </P> <P> </P> <P> I understand big changes can be disconcerting. These changes were neither random nor arbitrary, but it should be remembered that they are still being tested.</P> <DIV><BR>However, I must disagree that the game is impossible to play. I played it extensively with the changes in effect, as did many others on the team. Rough edges? Absolutely. A big thing that will be changed with tomorrow's beta update is that some of the arts that NPCs use have too high of a damage multiplier, resulting in extremely high attacks. We intend normal mob damage to be steady, not as streaky as it is in the build currently on Test.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Why today's changes? Simply put, NPCs weren't hitting players enough. I can say this from personal experience, because I could nearly solo a white ^^^ mob and had little problem soloing a blue ^^^ mob a few levels below me. Players of other classes reported similar results, though when player power is too good it's not like there are multiple threads on the boards complaining about it. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>To address the damage issue, we had a couple paths we could take. We could make it so that NPCs hit harder, so that when they connected you took a lot of damage. The problem with that is it penalizes certain classes more than others; we don't want everyone in a robe to die with a single standard hit from any NPC. Avoidance-reliant classes in general are affected by such changes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The other option is reducing the player's ability to avoid and mitigate NPC damage. It was well documented and discussed that plate tanks were getting extremely high mitigation and avoidance, and light armor wearers were simply avoiding the vast majority of attacks with little or no buffing required. <STRONG>Ultimately the decision we made was to go mostly with the latter approach by dropping avoidance and mitigation, though we made NPC hits more potent as well.</STRONG></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So how did we go about coming up with our current numbers? We played the game and made adjustments in real time, changing variables and trying out different combinations of gear and abilities. Lest you think we only test these things under idealized conditions, let me assure you that we don't. Last night, for example, I was in a group that was comprised of a bruiser, a berserker, and a conjurer, and we tested our results against white ^^^ mobs as well as a variety of other encounters.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Though we try a variety of classes, many of us on the team often test with a copy of our play character so that we can get the most true duplication of our playstyle possible. My testing character is the same level and has the same abilities and gear that I use on the live servers. When I test solo content, I go to the places I adventure on the live servers so that I can get a direct comparison. One zone I feel is a solid benchmark is the difficult setting of the Hideout in Splitpaw. They're solo encounters ranging from one to four NPCs with all archetypes being represented. I soloed my way through it with pretty much the same efficiency that I do on the live servers, and the gameplay felt very much the same (though I confess I really enjoy a lot of the new and expanded abilities present in the revamp).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now, please don't take this as a proclamation that everything is now just the way we want it to be. We'll continue tuning and adjusting combat until it's where we feel comfortable with it going live. Some specific things we're looking at:</DIV> <UL> <LI>As mentioned above, some NPC abilities are doing too much damage in one shot. We're changing a bunch of these tomorrow and will continue to watch for spikes. <LI>We're going through the Isle of Refuge and fixing issues with the low-end game. It will be playing smoothly again. <LI>We're continuing to watch the damage and ability pools of both players and NPCs to make sure they're where we want them to be.</LI></UL> <DIV>In short, we aren't done yet. Even when Live Update #13 is released, its not as if we won't make adjustments later.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As for concerns that we're running out of time and are still making major changes to balance, don't worry. One of the things our coders have been doing is replacing complex underlying systems and formulas with simpler systems that can be adjusted more easily. Changing the factors that affect combat is much easier now than when this all started. What seems like a huge change can really just be the tweaking of a few numbers.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG>To be clear, though, it is our desire that heroic encounters close to your level should require cooperation with other players to succeed. To help ensure that happens, they're going to do damage when they hit you.</STRONG></DIV>

[Nazo]

<FONT color=#ffff00>The base mitigation value of kite and tower shields has been reduced to 10%.</FONT><BR> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Let me help with this one. This is the 3rd nerf to shields. Now think who do not uses shields to tank. Yes ? Did I hear Brawler ? </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Looks like they cannot nerf <U>base</U> Plate Tank mitigation or avoidance anymore without causing an outright revolt so nerfs like this are put in.</DIV>

[Khal]

Total BS that scout shields block the same as warrior.

[-Aonein-]

<DIV>Check out <A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/arts/design/06worl.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=7053c2e95380c600&ex=1283659200&adxnnl=0&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1126219038-4+DR9FUGCMtYqJmQD04a8g" target=_blank><STRONG><FONT color=#ff6600>this</FONT></STRONG></A> article that was in the New York Time. Good bit of reading material.</DIV>

[-Aonein-]

Here is some <A href="http://www.eq2test.com/viewtopic.php?t=947" target=_blank><STRONG><FONT color=#ff3300>more</FONT></STRONG></A> interesting reading material.