Test Update Oct 18

[Lego]

*** Desert of Flames ***

 

- Some of the Fabled weapons originating in the Ro region have been given new appearances.
- Certain epic encounters that previously conned orange to level 60 players will now con yellow.
- Anyone who accidentally deleted "A Damsel in Distress" after completing any of the three component quests can now redo the "A Damsel in Distress" quest.

 

*** The Splitpaw Saga ***

 

- Skoam Anvilpaw no longer hits quite as hard.

 

*** Gameplay ***

 

- Mounts will now be dismissed if you feign death while aboard one.
- Mounts will now be suspended rather than dismissed if you enter water while aboard one. The mount will reappear when you return to dry land.

 

*** Epic Encounters ***

 

- The auto-attack, spell, and combat art damage of all x2, x3, and x4 epic encounters has been reduced.

 

*** Items ***

 

- Crafted Ebon armor is now black.
- Crafted Cobalt armor is now blue.
- Many pieces of armor that recently became brightly colored have been toned down to more appropriate levels.
- The Scepter of Rahotep has been made slightly more powerful.

 

*** Spells and Combat Arts ***

 

- All Priest emergency death-prevention spell lines now have a 100% chance to prevent death. Upgrades will increase the amount healed. This affects:
   - Templar: Salvation
   - Inquisitor: Redemption
   - Warden: Nature's Reprieve
   - Warden: Tunare's Watch
   - Fury: Feral Tenacity
   - Mystic: Eidolic Savior
   - Defiler: Eerie Avenger
- All Druid, Warden, and Fury specialty regeneration spell lines now regenerate as much health per tick as a Cleric reactive heal. The number of ticks granted by the spell was reduced by 1, but the overall amount healed is much greater:
   - Druid: Regrowth
   - Warden: Blessing of the Grove
   - Fury: Fleshweave
- All Druid group specialty regeneration spell lines now regenerate as much health per tick as a Cleric group reactive heal. The total amount of ticks granted by the spell was reduced by 1, but the overall amount healed is much greater. The range of the spell effect was increased to 25 meters to match that of other group specialty heals.
   - Druid: Winds of Renewal
   - Warden: Blessing of the Earth
   - Fury: Ram's Growth
- Druid and Warden Arch Healing spell lines tick 2 less times, but the amount healed per tick was increased. The initial amount of the heal was also increased.
   - Druid: Effloresce
   - Warden: Nature's Embrace
- Druid and Warden Group Heal spell lines have an increased tick amount:
   - Druid: Sylvan Wind
   - Warden: Healing Breeze
- The following area-of-effect damage spells now correctly use the same resistance rates as other AoE spell lines:
   - Bard: Alin's Keening Lamentation
   - Coercer: Simple Minds
   - Defiler: Aphotic Touch
   - Dirge: Dissonant Rhythm
   - Fury: Starburst, Bristlepelt AE proc effect
   - Inquisitor: Litany of Agony
   - Mage: Storm of Lightning
   - Mystic: Anger of the Ancients
   - Necromancer: Blight, Breath of the Unearthed
   - Sorcerer: Conflagration
   - Templar: Beams of Faith
   - Warden: Winds of Frost
   - Warlock: Negative Absolution, Dark Siphoning, Devastation
   - Wizard: Lightning Flash, Pyre, Chilling Wind

 

Coercer changes:
- Power of Suggestion no longer increases the group's Agility and Intelligence. These bonuses were moved to a more appropriate spell line.
- Signet of Insight now increases the group's Agility and Intelligence. It increases these stats by a greater amount than the Power of Suggestion line had.

 

Conjurer changes:

- Stoneskin will now scale appropriately as the caster levels.

 

Necromancer changes:
- The use of certain Necromancer spells will no longer cause a zone crash.

 

Paladin changes:
- Courageous Wrath, Implacable Wrath, and Unyielding Will are now classified as Combat Arts and provide a Strength bonus.
- Redemption can now be canceled by the recipient of the spell.

 

Ranger changes:
- The icon for Dance of Leaves now matches the rest of the spell line.

 

Shadowknight changes:
- Dark Sword, Grim Sword, and Plague Sword are now classified as Combat Arts.

 

Warden changes:
- Nature's Ally should now scale with level like other swarm pets.

 

Warlock changes:
- Invite Void had its health cost slightly increased to match the price that other mages must pay to restore power.
- Dark Pact now grants a slightly smaller casting skill bonus.
- Nil Absolution now uses the same Heroic Opportunity advancement as the previous spells in the line.

 

*** Tradeskills ***

 

- Rare level 50+ crafted armor now has the intended improvements to mitigation and resists.

- Upgrades to Offense, Desperate Offensive, Courageous Wrath, Dark Sword, and Spell Lash have been added to the appropriate recipe books.

*** Commands, Controls, and User Interface ***

 

- The recipe book should now function properly.
- The default style of some user interface windows was changed. Newly created characters will see these changes automatically; existing characters would need to delete their __eq2ui_settings.ini file to see them.

 

*** UI Files Updated ***

 

eq2ui_commonelements.xml
eq2ui_mainhud_compass.xml
eq2ui_mainhud_hotkey.xml
eq2ui_mainhud_junctionchoice.xml
eq2ui_mainhud_knowledge.xml
eq2ui_mainhud_knowledgesort.xml
eq2ui_mainhud_maintained.xml
eq2ui_mainhud_map.xml
eq2ui_mainhud_pet.xml 
eq2ui_mainhud_restarttrialbutton.xml
eq2ui_mainhud_shutdown.xml
eq2ui_tradeskill.xml

Message Edited by Moorgard on 10-18-2005 09:06 AM

===========================
Steve Danuser, a.k.a. Moorgard
Game Designer, EverQuest II

---

Should be some fairly happy Wardens and Furies today.  Looks like a lot of fixes for both classes are moving to Test.  I don't know offhand how the heal increases will affect you all, but the specialty changes are something I'm pretty excited about. 

 

 

[TheOnlySariah]

Yes this makes me very happy!! Too bad my warden isin't on test lol. New armour colors too is cool, but I would love to see way more varity in armor and clothes.

[Unmask]

Sounds good but the devil is in the details.

[DresdenMalicaster]

Well, it will certainly help no doubt. Hope we can get some numbers.

[Kyralis]

The devil is definitely in the details, but at least it is progress. It certainly *tries* to address the healing problem, and similarly addresses the issue of the wolves not scaling in level, which is one of our complaints. I'm wary of stating whether or not it will fix things after the ineffectiveness of the last "fix", but it definitely looks to be progress.

[DresdenMalicaster]

Nature's Ally scaling is a nice, nice addition too.

[Darl]

After reading part of the update notes, I had to go back and check the poster's name to make sure the Dev Tracker wasn't tricking me. Very surprising thing to see.

[Aaeamdar]

This goes into the better but not enough catagory.  They just don't get it.  At least single target Regens will be close to the Max_HPS of single target Reactives.  The group regen issue is still untouched, so Clerics and Shamen and Furys (because of BITF) will all be healing far better than we do.  Most of the problems still remain: Raids: 1. No reason to be in MT group.  Dust Storm not fixed so we offer nothing to the MT group.  2. Correspondingly, since everything we do when not in the MT group is Heal and Arch Heal and because where raids are concerned our Heal and Arch Heal value are all in the first tick - so we remain the worst choice of healer when not in MT group. Healing in Groups: Every other priest has one more heal than we do.  Furys get BITF.  Clerics/Shamen get the shared pool effect of their group specialty heals.  I'll wait for the numbers to come out to prove it, but I can already tell most healers will still be in the 25%+ over us in Max_HPS.  Changes to DUst Storm so that it cold be up almost all the time would help offset that. Special Spells: Our DPS will go up at least witht eh fix to the wolves, but we still get the shaft here having to take Tunare's Watch when others get useful (and many times extraordinary) abilities. It's a better adjustment than the last one, be we still will be the bottom of the barrel healer. 

[Ladred]

Stop complaining for once and be grateful of what you're being offered. They DIDN'T have to give us anything, and the last thing I had heard was that we were not getting any more adjustments at all. My suggestion would be to hop on to test, and actually test the changes before griping about them. Or maybe you can wait for them to go live and see if they help us. From a personal stand point, I would have to say that ANYTHING is helpful, and appreciated. So please stop boohooing and enjoy the modifications to our class. Thank you and please drive around.

[Arathon]

The work on the regens does sound like a step in the right direction.  But, as stated above, the devil is in the details.  I'm not getting my hopes up until I see the details, especially after the last fix that went in. 

 

From the initial read, I still dont see that they have addressed the issue of burst healing sufficiently.  But the comment regarding less ticks, increased healing per tick and the increase in the initial amt healed leaves some hope that it will help.  I hope the initial heal increase is big enough to make a difference. 

 

Anyone on Test post up some numbers for us?

 

Arathania -56th Level Warden

[Kyralis]

---

Ladred wrote:Stop complaining for once and be grateful of what you're being offered. They DIDN'T have to give us anything, and the last thing I had heard was that we were not getting any more adjustments at all. My suggestion would be to hop on to test, and actually test the changes before griping about them. Or maybe you can wait for them to go live and see if they help us. From a personal stand point, I would have to say that ANYTHING is helpful, and appreciated. So please stop boohooing and enjoy the modifications to our class. Thank you and please drive around.

---

I'll stop complaining when I have confidence that our subclass is fixed. They *did* have to give us something if they wanted to stem the tide of people quitting the class (or the game!) over things that were broken; it is their responsibility to fix things that are not working. I'm taking a wait-and see approach. Please note that this works both ways- I'm not going to complain about the changes, but I'm not going to praise them and kiss a developer's foot either. Regardless of whether or not these changes help the healing of the class, it doesn't change the fact that there remain *other* issues with the Warden class that still need to be addressed. Improvement is certainly good, but we're not done yet.

[Arathon]

---

Ladred wrote:
Stop complaining for once and be grateful of what you're being offered. They DIDN'T have to give us anything, and the last thing I had heard was that we were not getting any more adjustments at all. My suggestion would be to hop on to test, and actually test the changes before griping about them. Or maybe you can wait for them to go live and see if they help us. From a personal stand point, I would have to say that ANYTHING is helpful, and appreciated. So please stop boohooing and enjoy the modifications to our class. Thank you and please drive around.

---

I'm sorry but im not grateful for SOE dismantling the class ive played for a year.  I wont be happy with just ANY change.  Ive been pretty civil about things since beta, and for the most part optomistic.  However, I really dislike being treated with the approach SOE has had.  You may be happy with them throwing any type of bone your way, but don't chastise the other people playing this game who PAY for a service.  SOE's track record leaves alot to be desired, and I'm in agreement with the others posting here with skeptism.  Does this sound like a step in the right direction?  It sure does on paper without details.  But lets see some details. 

You are also wrong about whether or not they had to give us anything.  They are an entertainment company who needs clients.  You dont provide proper entertainment, you dont have clients.  I find it pretty interesting that an admin for a druid website would have the approach of shut up and be quiet, they can do anything they want to us. 

 

[Mor]

I'm waiting to see the numbers on the DHs as well.  If they are significantly front loaded now (75%ish), this may be a great first step. Yes, we still lack utility and buffs.  Yes, Tunare's Watch is still a worthless piece of junk.  Yes, we still need an additional heal.  Yes, the dogs and the tree need to be unkillable or just made into spells and skip the dramatic effect.   And yes, the regens will still come up short because of the lack of pooling.  However, it is a start.

[Aaeamdar]

---

Ladred wrote:Stop complaining for once and be grateful of what you're being offered. They DIDN'T have to give us anything, and the last thing I had heard was that we were not getting any more adjustments at all. My suggestion would be to hop on to test, and actually test the changes before griping about them. Or maybe you can wait for them to go live and see if they help us. From a personal stand point, I would have to say that ANYTHING is helpful, and appreciated. So please stop boohooing and enjoy the modifications to our class. Thank you and please drive around.

---

I am a customer, not a ward, of SOE.  I won't be "grateful" no matter what they do.  If they fix us, I'll be happy.  If they don't, that's too bad and eventually I won't even be a customer.  I'll never be "grateful" unless SOE stops taking my money and still gives me the product.

[Maelakai]

I'm not seeing changes to our minor heal line (hopefully I just missed it).  This is our bread and butter burst damage spell, and it needs attention as well.  Increasing our Arch is fine and dandy, but the time it takes to cast makes it less usefull when the tank is red.

 

Other than that I applaud the effort to fix some of our issues, however, as has been said many times, the devil is in the details.

 

I'll wait and see... however, it would certainly be big of SoE to allow a couple wardens to copy over to test to actually TEST the changes before they go live, since I'm not sure of the high level warden population on test....

[Mor]

I just noticed... only the arch healing line has been changed.   Our healing line appears unchanged.   Also, the group direct heal ticks for more, but no increase in the up front amount.  Also, it doesn't say the heal amount has been increased.  Hopefully, it is not a nerf.

[Formangenavn]

It looks like SOE took the easy way out. Upping some numbers does not mean HoT=Reactive=Ward. They fail to adress the mecanics that makes HoT inferior, especially conserning grp HoT.

I will wait and see what this will look like on live, but I am not overly enthusiastic.

[pedigr]

If all the numbers, posts, threads that weve posted gets us a single healing line addressed, just what the hell do we have to do to get the class completely fixed??

[Khale]

My main concern over this fix is that even with making changes to our healing, they really are still not making warden's even as equally desireable as the other druid class. With every fix we get, they also get. There is still nothing we can do that a Fury can not do better. With the exception of we get evac but, then again, they get invis. When you take our healing, buffs, and dps all together as a package the Fury still comes out on top.

 

So I ask Sony - what is it that will make someone actually *want* to play a Warden? Given that the disadvantage of being a warden over a fury is that we give up dps and invisibility, what does the Fury give up to be, well, a Fury?

[Raijinn]

Lets be honest here folks, anytime anything is changed in a class there will be some feeling of uneasy and unhappiness. The truth is with balance considerations in mind it's never an easy task to get everything just right without having to change things here and there.

 

Does this mean that everything is set in stone and it's something we're not going to look back on, I wouldn't count on it.

 

The main thing for everyone one to do to REALLY see what's going on, is to get in and play.

[Maelakai]

---

Khaleel wrote:

My main concern over this fix is that even with making changes to our healing, they really are still not making warden's even as equally desireable as the other druid class. With every fix we get, they also get. There is still nothing we can do that a Fury can not do better. With the exception of we get evac but, then again, they get invis. When you take our healing, buffs, and dps all together as a package the Fury still comes out on top.

 

So I ask Sony - what is it that will make someone actually *want* to play a Warden? Given that the disadvantage of being a warden over a fury is that we give up dps and invisibility, what does the Fury give up to be, well, a Fury?

---

Good point, and one that should be addressed.  I wouldn't ever call for a nerf on another class, especially one that has lived as the underdog for as long as they did.  But, lets be realistic...

 

DPS

Fury/Warden share similar DPS ability... our nukes are smaller and faster, fury nukes are bigger and slower.

 

Healing

Fury/Warden basic spells give similar HP/s, however this is quickly imbalanced by the two 'rare' T6 fury spells BITF and Hibernation.  This is not offset by our tree, since it barely ever lives though an AE attack.

 

Utility/Buffs

Similar, there is very little difference in the basic buffs between Warden and Fury, however a Fury can provide a tank with 36s of near invulnerability with a lvl 50 spell... our lvl 50 spell will not even heal for as much as our T6 single target HoT, and it provides no secondary benefits.  Dust/Sand is only useful in group situation and provides absolutely no benefit on raids.

 

Debuffs

Fury's have more, period.  Wardens have 2 real debuffs, and only one that can land on epic mobs.

 

So, for a new druid coming up the tree the choice is pretty clear...

[Maelakai]

---

 

The main thing for everyone one to do to REALLY see what's going on, is to get in and play.

---

I don't believe there are any 50+ wardens on test (but please correct me if I'm wrong).  So... these changes will never be tested properly before they hit live.  This, more than anything, is what concerns me.

[Raijinn]

Maelakai,

 

I completely understand your concern there, I'll find out more on this in the near future.

[Tstorm]

I think it is important to realize that class balance is an evergreen process -- SOE will continue to make tweaks as necessary until the end of time.There really isn't an ideal way to test balance changes either as it is so dependent on how well a person is outfitted along with more intangible things like skill and strategy.  Lots of players are needed to generate representative statistics that show the real picture behind whether a balance tweak worked or failed.  If the changes are already on Test, I'm sure SOE has done some initial testing and is happy with the data, Test server players will take it a bit further (and will hopefully be able to catch any glaring problems), but the Live servers is where the best data of all is likely to be collected.I'm happy to see changes being tried and I'm sure that if more are needed, SOE will make additional tweaks.

[pedigr]

The devs just have to ask us...  Well tell them whats wrong with the class if theyre genuinely interested in listening to people that play the class...  After all, there arent any 50+ Wardens on test.

Message Edited by pedigree on 10-18-2005 11:58 AM

[Raijinn]

pedigree,

And that's why I'm here to listen.

[Kyralis]

I'm as big an advocate as the next person, but I'd like to strongly suggest that we take a wait and see approach for a bit, now that there's the promise of at least initial fixing on the horizon. I don't mind the class being fixed incrementally, as long as those fixes are in fact forthcoming. This is a start. It's not going to solve everything, but we should wait, see what it *does* solve, and then continue to agitate about what remains broken (including utility). As to those complaining about the healing- while it doesn't strictly cover raid-style burst dps, I think you'll find that it does, in fact, up our group burst healing capability significantly- and the arch heal increase may be enough to work with raid-style burst as well. I very strongly suggest that we wait to see actual numbers, and then base continued complaints (if needed) on those.

[Croa]

---

Formangenavn wrote:

It looks like SOE took the easy way out. Upping some numbers does not mean HoT=Reactive=Ward. They fail to adress the mecanics that makes HoT inferior, especially conserning grp HoT.

I will wait and see what this will look like on live, but I am not overly enthusiastic.

---

I'm confused here...  I was under the impression that Wardens were among the best healers before the combat update and patches.  If I remember correctly we still used HOT spells back then, too. I personally like HOT better. Why?  Because when someone other than the tank gets hit I can use regens to heal them.  Casting a reactive or ward on someone not regularly taking damage doesn't do anything at all. This is especially why I like the group HOT. Even after the patches I still use the group HOT quite often. In any case, if Wardens were good before then I would guess that HOT mechanics can still work.

 

I guess I don't understand some of the pessimistic attitudes around here. I don't care who did what to which classes. I don't find having a negative attitude about everything as being enjoyable, uplifting, fun, or beneficial.  Regardless if I put in 5 hours a week or 40 hours a week, this is still a game. No amount of changes can "waste" my time spent, because in a game the fun is playing for the moment. Spending countless hours just to be the best and better than everyone else is a clear sign of taking a game too seriously.    That doesn't mean that problems should be ignored. Pointing out problems and suggesting changes can be good. It's the pessimistic attitude of many of those types of posts that don't seem beneficial to me. I'm referring to all of these types of posts not just this thread actually (which has been relatively calm overall). 

 

Back onto this new patch.. I don't see how it can do anything but help. It's increasing HOT totals, initial heal, and decreasing the total time in which that healing takes place. I think the biggest problem right now is only having one regen and it has a noticeable recycle timer. Give me two regens so I can alternate between them to keep multiple group members alive when aggro goes wrong. 

Message Edited by Croake on 10-18-2005 11:49 AM

[Lockeye]

Patience pays off.

 

The Hotfix from the previous Warden update required me to get special approval like all other hotfix changes (I can't make changes and expect them to appear the next day), because the amount of testing or research time available to put them in is not the same as a change made during a live update means that there's more risk involved. I worked with the information that I had when I got back and also had to take into consideration the impact that LU14 had on Reactive heals because of the decreased attack speed of NPCs, so I had to watch the dual impact that it had on balance of specialty heals and analyze that data over time. I take a very research oriented approach that does not respond to immediate demands and gratification. Hurling flames and insults doesn't do any good for the player community, and won't get things done any faster and it only makes it more difficult for communication between player and developer to flourish. (Would you willingly walk in a pit of flames?).

 

Constructive feedback is always welcome (and helpful) and I thank those that post consolidated threads that stick to the issues without negativity. I used to be in a position where I would fight for balance and bug fixes for my class. I stuck to making clear points based on testing and offered alternative solutions and kept a positive attitude while understanding that changes took time, and in turn I received a good feedback loop between player and developer. Like I said before, I’m here to ensure that the combat system is balanced and working properly, and I make adjustments as needed.

[Dragonreal]

The reason we were so great before had nothing to do with the regens; we were great before because we had huge direct heals compared to the other classes.. our t5 "small" direct heal healed for about 50 points less at the same spell quality than other healers' large direct heal (barring defilers.. mystics too? idk). Even compared to the defiler's large heal though, our small direct was only 100 points behind that one and had a much better recast time, so still not TOO big a difference.