EQ2 Producer's Letter - December 2005

[Gertack_v2]

I like the idea of the archetype system but my problem with it is that you do not get to experience the differences in the classes prior to making your choice.  As a level 9 priest you don't have a reactive, a regen, or a ward to test out and see which you prefer.  As a level 9 mage, you don't have a pet, a mez, but you do have damage spells.  Give out "[Removed for Content]" versions of all three class abilities below level 9 so we can try them and it'd work out better.  Though I don't really have an idea how you'd do that with fighters...

[Darkmort]

There was a post saying "please try it out before you vent too much"

 

I will say I'll like the new system if again that a level 21 character can get that particular spell (Luckblade for example) at level 13 or so.  Theres no point in getting Luckblade around 17-19  when the old system has it at level 21.6  If choosing a Troubadour at level 1, again I want that Luckblade spell before I hit 15 otherwise I may as well play it the old method cause not too long then will I get it.  Ka-Peesh

[Hammerdim]

How about you do what someone else suggested. You start out at the Isle and your actions reflect the type of class you eventually become. Like you're a Dark Elf and you choose Shadowknight, you still start out untrained and have to do quests and kill enemies for your spells. Do good deeds and slowly you become a Paladin instead. I'm sure SOE can figure something out.

[Despak]

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Gallenite wrote:

 

Later, as we expand the definition and role of Factions in the cities, we may be exploring the idea of faction-based betrayal that supports city betrayal at all levels. 

 

- Scott

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Out of almost everything a Dev has ever hinted at; that single line there made me sit up straight and think "wow best idea ever in EQ2".  Hurry up and get in game pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.

[ironman2000]

But don't you think its going to be fishy that a High Elf or Wood Elf at level 1-20 starts using necromantic spells and conjures up undead playmates in the confines of the city of Qeynos? Or what if a Troll or Ogre start using Paladin heals and wards in Freeport, don't you think the overlord might get a bit suspicious about that? If you don't start giving the people that are planning on betraying the spells "that define the class" early on, they still won't know what it feels like to be the class that they want to be anyway until they betray.  So that High Elf Necormancer, will still be a conjurer until he or she betrays or that Troll or Ogre Paladin will still be a Shadow Knight until he or she betrays, its still going to cause confusion, because you are going to teach them how to be a necromancer or shadow knight specifically and not give them time to develop basic skills early on, then suddenly give them a whole new set of skills when they betray, you seriously don't think thats not going to cause some confusion for new players?  I think its going to cause more confusion than there is now, because now you are kind of generic and undefined, you learn the basics then you get your final skills once you have the basics.  But if you force them to be something they aren't planning to be its simply going to be really really confusing, more so than if they are just the generic mage or generic fighter until they betray and then finally start to define themselves when they get to their new home.

 

And I have done the betrayal quests from both directions, so I have experience in the matter. I've done it twice in either direction.  With the changes that already happened to betrayal quest, its already much much easier than it was back when I did it on day 1 of Everquest 2 with my high elf becoming a shadow knight and my dark elf becoming a paladin.  I would have much preferred it to teach me to be a generic fighter first instead of making my dark elf a fledgling shadow knight or my high elf a paladin, because by the time i would have betrayed I would have been scratching my head, trying to figure out where my life taps went for my dark elf on the Shadow Knight (when I betrayed and became a paladin) and my heals went on the High Elf Paladin (when I betrayed and became a Shadow Knight), being thats not the classes I had planned on playing to start.

 

Edit: Added and After Thought

 

Message Edited by ironman2000 on 12-18-2005 12:20 AM

[Kylan]

Hmm.. smells like EQII:NGE to me, less classes, faster action, "directed content". Oh well.

[Rhouvus]

Interesting changes, but with already six characters at least in their twenties there won't be much of a chance for me to see any of it. And I don't want to delete any characters ...Rhouvus

[Aer]

wow...  If a lot of the spells & abilities are going to be changed from lvl1 to 19,  They will need to get all the craft'n books for scholar changed over.   Not to mention all the advanced scholar books.  I sapose all the apprentice, adept & master abilities that are not scribed will be switched to some default alternate class ability.   Hopefull unscribed books will be switched to all classes in some pattern.  IE: unscribed T2 master & adept preditor abilities will be changed to some ranger & some assassin abilities. 

Best case:  the old unscribed abilities would be unchanged and then switched to the owner class when they are scribed.  IE: a Preditor master ability would be unchanged, but when scribed by a ranger would become a ranger ability, while the same master ability scribed by an assassin would become an assassin ability.  At the same time all new crafted & dropped abilities will be of the new class progression for lvl1  to 19.:smileywink:

If there is a scholar on the test server that could make all the T2 abilities and just store them in their vault, they could see what happens when the patch goes in.  I would assume if a particular apprentice preditor ability changes to ranger, It's matching adept & master abilities would change to ranger also.

This will be a big undertakeing to get everything right.  Then again...  a month after all the changes go live,  the finer details of how things got switched over for T1 & T2 stuff will simply not matter anymore.  I wish the DEVs all my best in this undertakeing :smileyhappy:

Message Edited by Aerol on 12-18-2005 04:52 AM

[Sazz]

Is this going to adversely effect guilds in any way that have both good and evil people in them?

[gracjan-s]

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Kylania schrieb:Hmm.. smells like EQII:NGE to me, less classes, faster action, "directed content". Oh well.

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yes very nice @ Classes and Cities: The class quest are one of the best in this game and now they will be deleted Another advantage was the better RP and identification with my char as he develops from a refuge to a mage then chany and coercer. Now he isnt a refuge anymore, he is immediately a coercer *lol*This game becomes more and more boring, easy, uninteresting *hope on Vanguard*

[Xadius]

Save all this new crap for EQ3. Leave EQ2 alone. It's getting very frustating to have all these new changes especially after getting used to one thing and then changing so much. If you just gotta do something and can't leave it alone, at least fix the parts that don't work. Jeesh, this is getting [r-e-t-a-r-d-e-d]. If I wanted a change, I'd change to a different game.

Btw, I could care less about PvP

 

Message Edited by MaxBet on 12-18-2005 09:19 AM

[QuiTs]

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Sazzia wrote:
Is this going to adversely effect guilds in any way that have both good and evil people in them?

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Yea, I would really like to know more about this City Vrs City stuff...

SoE never took the time to really develop this so now that a guild like ours that has guild members in both citys make use of our guild bank and have two guild houses to support members of both citys.

I find this rather very NON informative. I am sure we all would like to hear more about this.

Not being clear about some stuff... sure... but this whole city thing... Well this affects that game in ways that most of us may have an issue with.

 

-T

[Knocky]

I certainly hope that people going through the Betrayal quest will be immune to PvP. Sure will be hard to kill 500 gnolls plus teh named ones if Qeynos peeps are trying to kill you at  the same time in Antanica.

[Knocky]

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QuiTsun wrote:

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Sazzia wrote:Is this going to adversely effect guilds in any way that have both good and evil people in them?

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Yea, I would really like to know more about this City Vrs City stuff...

SoE never took the time to really develop this so now that a guild like ours that has guild members in both citys make use of our guild bank and have two guild houses to support members of both citys.

I find this rather very NON informative. I am sure we all would like to hear more about this.

Not being clear about some stuff... sure... but this whole city thing... Well this affects that game in ways that most of us may have an issue with.

-T

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What is to hear? This will not affect you at all....unless you try to recreate your guild on a PvP server. Then obviously you will not be able to have a guild with enemies in it.

[Pon]

I'm not sure if this was covered yet but I am going to ask anyway. 

Will we be able to transfer existing characters to one of these new servers free of charge for a certain time period after they go live?

I'm not trying to be negative but, there are going to be a number of people who are going to jump from thier servers to these new ones. With some servers already with a low population of people, are there any dicussions among the devs about maybe merging some of these lower population servers?

Will we be able to attack the gaurds inside the opposing city? or will it still be if they see you you get zoned out to antonica or commonlands.

Message Edited by Ponno on 12-18-2005 01:46 PM

[nezran]

I'm really excited about these changes! I kept getting all happy while reading the letter. I look forward to the PvP content and hope to create a character on one of the servers right away. I would love to help with beta testing it too! I haven't played much PvP but I would love to see the good and evil alignments really mean something--it would really help our roleplaying. Which is why I would have to agree with others that have said that a RP PvP server might make sense. I have to admit that I tried, umm, that other game this weekend....and all I have to say is those people don't know what is good. They have obviously not played EQ2. I didn't play long enough to try the PvP stuff, and I can see where it might be fun---I beta tested Shadowbane for the same reasons--, but the rest of the game is a cheap version of EQ1, certainly not a next generation MMORPG.  The character tree changes sound good too. While I can understand why they were developed the way they are, I can also see how the new changes will streamline things and get people into their desired roles faster. I see both major changes as moves toward more roleplaying--the genre that this game is after all. I think all your decisions have been great. Keep up the good work!

[Lonesail]

Hmmm... this seems to be heading the way of StarWars Galaxies' NGE (New Game Experience)... the experience that I ran away from.

So what are the chances that in the name of balance and accessibility all the classes will be compacted into 9 or so more distinct/simplistic ones and/or combat system will be changed into more console-style like SWG's NGE?

At least to me it certainly feels as if you're easing us into it.

I truly hope this does not happen, but I am getting concerned since both games are made by the same company.

[HolyAvengerOne]

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Kylania wrote:Hmm.. smells like EQII:NGE to me, less classes, faster action, "directed content". Oh well.

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No, that's not it. Absolutely not what he said. Read it again so you can realize that you'll get even more choices between level 1-20, NOT less. Same # of classes.... Want some cheese with your whine ?

[Knocky]

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Ponno wrote:

I'm not sure if this was covered yet but I am going to ask anyway. 

Will we be able to transfer existing characters to one of these new servers free of charge for a certain time period after they go live?

I'm not trying to be negative but, there are going to be a number of people who are going to jump from thier servers to these new ones. With some servers already with a low population of people, are there any dicussions among the devs about maybe merging some of these lower population servers?

Will we be able to attack the gaurds inside the opposing city? or will it still be if they see you you get zoned out to antonica or commonlands.

Message Edited by Ponno on 12-18-2005 01:46 PM

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I certainly hope that there will be no transfers available at all.

[Istaril]

Likewise. I certainly hope there will at least be one pvp server which never (ever) allows server transfers to and from it.

 

That's the server I'll be starting on

 

 

Everyone at equal footing, facing off from the start.

[Pon]

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Istaril wrote:

Likewise. I certainly hope there will at least be one pvp server which never (ever) allows server transfers to and from it.

 

That's the server I'll be starting on

 

 

Everyone at equal footing, facing off from the start.

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I unerstand the thinking in this. But at the same time I realize that the very thing you want to avoid, high level players slaughtering low level players, will inevitably happen. It's going to take the power gamers with bed pans and feeding tubes about a week or less to hit level 30 or 40. At which point they will be higher than 98% of the population and the greifing will being.

[Keel]

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Cercsij wrote:

True Keelis, but they are doing it now so give them a cheer and be happy! :smileyhappy:

Message Edited by Cercsij on 12-16-2005 11:29 PM

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Dumping the broken archtype system is the best thing SOE has planned to do with EQ2 since launch. Since before launch, even. I do not, however, have much faith that these changes will be executed much better than the archetype system was. I think we can look forward to yet another 12 months of class balancing, this time driven by PvP. No matter how they try to paint it, PvP will adversely affect PvE. Even so, I'm afraid that they will not go far enough in correcting the classes. From this letter, it sounds as though they are simply reverting to EQ1 style class definitions, when I believe the game would greatly benefit from a completely new direction, at least for some of the archetypes. Mages: The best way to balance magery is to have only one class, Mage, and let each player select his own spells. One option would be to limit the number of spells per level in the characters spell book. But a much more interesting option would be similar to Guild Wars, wherein the Mage would have a limited number of spells to be memorized at any one time and would have to return to some designated areas to swap out memorized spells. Another option would be to give the player a selection of spells to choose from at each level when the new spell lines become available. You are then 'locked in' to that spell line and automatically receive the replacement spells in that line when you level up, but still have some opportunity to create a mage class that is defined by the player. That would completely eliminate the need to balance one mage class against the others. Of course then everyone will be talking about the uber build, but still defining your Mage would be entirely up to the player who would be free to experiment and customize for each group mix and adventure. Priests: By the gods, bring back the gods. Again, only one class instead of six. Spells and CAs for Priests should be determined by the deity the character serves, not by a class definition. There will still be balancing issues to resolve, but at least there would be a fantasy roleplaying explanation for the differences. Fighters: Merge Monk and Bruiser into one class. Also merge Guardian and Berserker. As it is, those classes are just splitting hairs with no logical reasoning, just the initial design teams obsession with parallelism. Good versus Evil still works for Paladin and Shadow Knight. Scouts: Which nimrod thought Bards were scouts anyway? Merge Troubadors and Dirges as well as Swashbucklers and Brigands. Again, those classes were split to satisfy some failed math major's sense of symmetry. With that clean up out of the way, maybe they could work on bringing in some new, truly interesting character classes. Like maybe a real Thief?

Message Edited by Keelis on 12-18-2005 03:17 PM

[ChristusKole]

I am just happy that SOE continues to try and provide new and exciting content.  I know a lot of people when they level as far as they can go are very happy and want to continue gaming with that toon.  However, the joy I get from gaming is the opportunity to start again and do something different maybe be evil, good, or betray a city.  I think being able to choose your final profession at character creation time is a great concept and will make the gaming experience more fun rather than tedious as you plow through 19 levels.  I am also hoping that the change will help the game economy since people will be wanting to try this new system.Thanks again SOE for working hard to make my one investment in entertainment worth while.

[WsaberMT]

nice changes i may have to try out pvp server when goes live

[shadowfalx]

    I see, what your saying Keelis is to make the game DnD. humm Not sure but I think SoE likes the way they implemented EQLive's classes, and that seems to be the best way to do it.     Haveing only 1 mage class, but lots of spells, but only being able to pick a few spells a lvl, or haaving only a few spells memerizes at a time is even harder to balance, because you then have to balance every single spell for every single level. As it is now the classes just have to be balanced over all, a lvl 20 sorc and a lvl 20 nerco does not have to be balanced perfectly, because if the necro is a bit more powerful at lvl 20, maybe the sorc gets a better spell at lvl 21 then the nerco, thus evening them out. It it were one class, everyone would pick the best spell for each level, thus everyone is the same.

[Keel]

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shadowfalx wrote:    I see, what your saying Keelis is to make the game DnD. humm Not sure but I think SoE likes the way they implemented EQLive's classes, and that seems to be the best way to do it.     Haveing only 1 mage class, but lots of spells, but only being able to pick a few spells a lvl, or haaving only a few spells memerizes at a time is even harder to balance, because you then have to balance every single spell for every single level. As it is now the classes just have to be balanced over all, a lvl 20 sorc and a lvl 20 nerco does not have to be balanced perfectly, because if the necro is a bit more powerful at lvl 20, maybe the sorc gets a better spell at lvl 21 then the nerco, thus evening them out. It it were one class, everyone would pick the best spell for each level, thus everyone is the same.

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You mean the way Verant set up the EQ classes; SOE only bought the game. Then proceded to bork it. EQ2 is SOE's only attempt thus far at creating this kind of game. And no, not like D&D. D&D is Vancian style cast it and forget it. Not just 'pick a few spells per level', but get to pick your spells or spell lines as you level rather than pick a class and that dictates all of your spells forever. See the difference? Am I going too fast for you? Any twit can simply pick a class and then not have to think for 60 levels. You seem to only be thinking in terms of raiding. Don't worry though, the kind of change I was suggesting will not happen because SOE is also only thinking in terms of raids.

[Magic Wand]

Being an altaholic, I was very excited to hear about the new content for low-level characters as well as the changes to gain subclass abilities more quickly.

 

I like the idea of alignment-based PvP and think it will work well within the current EQ2 lore. I especially like the idea of having to defend your neighborhood and city proper from incursions by players of the opposing city. I can see a lot of fun coming from that.

 

I'd like to suggest that non-PvP servers be spiced up in a similar fashion through orc and gnoll incursions into their respective cities. There really needs to be a more menacing atmosphere in the presence of those creatures so close to the city walls.

[Kordran]

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Keelis wrote:

You seem to only be thinking in terms of raiding. Don't worry though, the kind of change I was suggesting will not happen because SOE is also only thinking in terms of raids.

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The implementation of your idea will do the exact opposite of what your stated intent is. Instead of promoting diversity and flexibility amongst the mage classes, it will eliminate it. Players will simply go to the spoiler website of their choice and print out the list of what the "uber" spell choice is for their level. In turn that will push SOE into a cycle of nerfs, as such configurations will inevitably trivialize existing content.

I don't think you're going "too fast" fast for anyone. Your idea is simply a bad one.

[Coppun]

4 words...  Waste of Developer time...    FIX [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] don't add more broken crap...  good lord.   DDO was less buggy then this PoS!!

[HanktheDwarf]

My question, regarding PvP, is will there be incentive to join Freeport over Qeynos or vice versa?  Go on any server.  There are twice as many goodies as their are ebils.  Will you give one side bonus for having less than another?

Message Edited by HanktheDwarf on 12-18-2005 08:18 PM