Patch questions

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Ravenwing, Nov 5, 2015.

  1. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    Reading through today's patch notes, I wanted to raise a few questions.

    Feign Death

    I don't play a feign class on TAKP, but I did play a monk on Al'Kabor. Am I correct in reading this as saying that NPCs have a two-minute "forget" timer here on TAKP? On Al'Kabor, there was no two-minute timer. Mobs forgot feigned players (a) when the initial feign successfully made them forget, (b) when they returned to their spawn points and reset, or (c) after 10 minutes had gone by without the feigned player having done anything to incur aggro. One roamer usually meant the monk had to chain-flop until blur succeeded, and more than one pretty much always forced the monk to /q out.

    Where does this come from? Live? A few mobs would frequently fail to reset properly on AK, but I always put this down to a bug; apart from the handful of mobs prone to this behavior, a mob that returned to its spawn point seemed reliable not to re-aggro.

    Lull

    I'm also curious to know where this change comes from. It's the kind of thing that could easily have escaped my notice on AK - does someone have an AK log of a lull spell wearing off prematurely? (Come to think of it, did lull spells, being beneficial effects, produce messages at all when they wore off on AK?)

    Charm

    Am I correct in reading this as a compromise between the Al'Kabor (and pre-April-'03 EQLive) state of affairs, whereby charm pets could tank regardless of the number of entities on the hate list, and the April '03 charm nerf on Live, which made NPCs ignore charm pets if several players (4? I forget) were also on the hate list?

    If so, is there a dev out there willing to expound a bit on the project team's philosophy re: what kind of Al'Kabor mechanics the TAKP devs wish to emulate and which they wish to modify, and how this change fits into that philosophy? When this topic has come up before, our discussion has mostly been limited to bugs, but this seems more a question of balance and game design.
     
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  2. Haynar

    Haynar Administrator

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    As far as not resetting npc's, i only ever saw them not clear aggro when they never quite returned to their spawn point. They would stop just short and not rotate to their guard heading. And thus never clear aggro. If they made it to spawn point, i observered 100% clear of aggro when they stopped rotating.

    These FD changes are from Torven. So he will have to explain them, as I cannot. I am guessing he played a FD pulling class too.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2015
  3. Lenas

    Lenas I Feel Loved

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    I am also wondering what's up with the Harmony changes... Did it really require LOS on AK?
     
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  4. Seduce

    Seduce Member

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    Hi Ravenwing,

    Thanks for opening an discussion about the patch notes.

    I would also like to mention this patch does not scale at all for the lower level monks with FD. with 100 skill I did nearly 50 attempts "falls to the ground" failed feign deaths. I tried this across various zones as well. Assuming this is not working as intended, it would seem a class would have some core function mechanics working early on to grasp and utilize for leveling and understanding the monk class.

    "On Al'Kabor, there was no two-minute timer. Mobs forgot feigned players (a) when the initial feign successfully made them forget, (b) when they returned to their spawn points and reset, or (c) after 10 minutes had gone by without the feigned player having done anything to incur aggro. One roamer usually meant the monk had to chain-flop until blur succeeded, and more than one pretty much always forced the monk to /q out."

    Indeed. A 2 minute timer obliterates the core function of FD splitting. I too would like to here the reason behind this patch. My concern here is that we drift from EQ mac "Al'Akbor" accuracy and become something Al'kabor was not. My hope is that we strive to relive what we all missed about EQ Mac before it was sunsetted years ago.

    Best Regards,
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2015
  5. Seduce

    Seduce Member

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    +1.
     
  6. Elroz

    Elroz I Feel Loved Staff Member

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    This is 100% how I remember it working as well. I'm wondering if the 5% chance to not blur is a simulation of the bug where they didn't home properly? You could always tell when the mob didn't home properly because like haynar said, it wouldn't rotate to its' proper home heading, and sometimes it would be a couple steps to the side of the home point. Once it bugged like that, the only way to force it to reset was to re-aggro it and then feign again.
     
  7. robregen

    robregen Administrator Staff Member

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    I am not sure about the Lull and FD mechanics as those were not discussed in details within the team, it was briefly stated in some testing. But we did discussed the Charm pet mechanic in the developer channel in terms of Pet Zerging a raid mob that could trivilized the contents. Torven can speak more about these game mechanics since he coded those.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2015
  8. Cazar

    Cazar Well-Known Member

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    I did not get to play on AK long, but I have played a monk on Live for years. I agree with what Elroz and Haynar have said above.

    Also, if Seduce is having 100+ FD skill and has failed 50 straight Feigns, that sounds like a new bug (unless she is leaving attack on).
     
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  9. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    The FD changes come from here: http://www.eqclassic.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=3299&start=25

    That thread quotes a Nov 1999 patch note, which includes the following:

    The two minute timer was already in our code and has always been there. (I didn't test to see if it worked however) I found numerous sources to suggest that it was put in long before PoP. (including that eqclassic thread) The 'enemies have forgotten you' message was put in later.

    The Lulls fading early was something I noticed on Live. When I researched that, I couldn't find anything definitive; I found a few comments that suggested that they may have always been that way, and several to suggest that it may have been something put in a few months prior to GoD. However something that was also put in prior to GoD was fixing lulls to use their correct durations instead of lasting 5 minutes, which was something Hobart did for AK shortly before AK's shutdown. I can't say if Hobart also put in the lulls fading early, but those two went in around the same time on PC EQ. (if it wasn't already in)

    I've since collected more data on that (it's a HUGE PITA to make logs of btw, requiring me to sit and watch my character cast thousands of lulls and reset the mob's aggro each time) and I now think that it may be 1% per level starting at either 2% for white cons and not for blues, or 1% for a blue con -1 levels and not earlier. A +5 red con had ~7% tick fade rate and whites have a 2%. Since this may have only occurred on whites and above and put in a couple months before shutdown, it could have easily been unnoticed on AK.

    The charm limit was put in because we don't want people pet zerging raid bosses. It was put in no later than April 8 on Live, but I believe that patch note may have been late and it might have been put in earlier. Anyway, I didn't want to prevent single group charm tanking so I raised it. If I didn't put it in, Trakanon would be pet zerged with half a dozen krup knights and 5 epic mage pets this week, because I fixed his proc to not work on NPCs.

    AoE lulls started requiring LoS when they changed them from being useless to overpowered in Sept 2002. From my AK log:

    [Sun Nov 18 23:30:59 2012] You begin casting Harmony.
    [Sun Nov 18 23:31:02 2012] You cannot see your target.

    AK had no worn off messages for lulls. There is not a single instance of it in my logs.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2015
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  10. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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  11. Seduce

    Seduce Member

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    Indeed. I'm happy to report I started to have fd success post 100 but still is quite underwhelming

    Trying to get max my threshold so I can test further.. Might be a specific level range I was in.. I believe 70 - 100 was about right.
     
  12. Lenas

    Lenas I Feel Loved

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    Do we have access to Harmony of Nature? I don't think we do. If not, implementing this 2002 era functionality cripples the Ranger's ability as a pulling class.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2015
  13. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    Thanks Haynar, Rob, and especially Torven for taking the time to answer.

    For what it's worth, I also remember running into the LOS restriction on Wake of Tranquility on AK.

    Thank you for the explanation on charm. Your thinking makes sense. (I worry a bit that come PoP it'll create some perverse incentives toward exclusionary behavior, but that's a discussion that can be opened down the road, if and when it needs to be.)

    With apologies if I'm being pushy, I do want to contest this point further:

    I did a great deal of feign pulling on Al'Kabor, and apart from a few serial offenders that mysteriously failed to forget players with great frequency (off the top of my head, Tormax and his guards, the dust ring triggers in PoEa, and phase 3 trash in PoTime), probably due to a geometry/pathing issue, this failure to forget upon reset simply wasn't happening. It sounds like Elroz, Haynar, and Cazar are all in agreement on this point.

    I think it's likely that this mechanic either disappeared sometime between the 1999 patch message you're quoting and 2002, or else the patch message flat out got it wrong. (Which does happen from time to time; for example, the patch explanation of the DOT stacking changes of September 2002 was demonstrably wrong, and Geoff Zatkin gave some odd answers about spell mechanics from time to time.)
     
  14. wharhogg

    wharhogg Member

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    "The charm limit was put in because we don't want people pet zerging raid bosses. It was put in no later than April 8 on Live, but I believe that patch note may have been late and it might have been put in earlier. Anyway, I didn't want to prevent single group charm tanking so I raised it. If I didn't put it in, Trakanon would be pet zerged with half a dozen krup knights and 5 epic mage pets this week, because I fixed his proc to not work on NPCs."

    ^ are you emulating AK or preventing people from raiding in a non traditional way? Making charm killing not viable for killing raid bosses was not active on AK.....did plenty of AOW with charmed giants....plenty of BOT Tower named......RZTW....ect.
     
  15. Sturmm

    Sturmm Well-Known Member

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    Wharhogg, I think the key here is the charm "limit", if I'm reading it correctly, which in this case is 9. I remember plenty of charm killing raid mobs on AK as well, but there were never more than a few charmed pets, and this addendum wouldn't seem to prevent or change that.
     
  16. wharhogg

    wharhogg Member

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    Also fyi
    * Roamers/patrollers not in a roambox will now gate at low health. VP dragons
    could gate, which is proof that some roamers could in fact gate.

    They are gating fine prior to putting in code for it. Hoshkar gates every week.

    Sturmm, the point is why add code that never existed on live/AK just to prevent players from raiding in their own way?
     
  17. Sturmm

    Sturmm Well-Known Member

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    Point. But do we know it wasn't in on AK, since I don't think anyone charm petted 9 or more pets on a raid?
    And he makes the point that he believes it was put in earlier than the patch date, so again maybe it was in on AK.

    I'm of course just spitballing here, I'm looking forward to Torven's response as well
     
  18. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    Sturmm, he's counting the total number of entities on the hate list, not the total number of charm pets. So 6 players and three charm pets, for example, would be the limit. This limit wasn't in on AK. Destiny killed Reparm with charm pets on at least one occasion that I know of (and Temerity did so by accident once or twice when the tank died and he instantly chewed through all the melee :p). My favorite Jiva kill of all time involved four charm pets, 8 toons, and about a dozen adds; that wouldn't have been possible with a limit like this one in place.

    If I'm reading Torven and Rob correctly, they acknowledge that this isn't how things were on Al'Kabor, and are putting the restriction in place because they don't want to see raid bosses charm-tanked on TAKP. Which is a legitimate concern; SOE didn't want bosses charm-tanked on live, either, which is why they nerfed charm in 2003.

    (On thinking it over, I do wonder if the concern over Trakanon isn't misplaced, though: since he's a bellycaster, using charm pets to tank him means using *only* charm pets to kill him, with no nukes or melee damage. With his lifetap guaranteed to hit for full damage on every proc, that might not work out too well. I used a charmed jugg to evade the banish when I soloed him on Al'Kabor, but I had to time the effect's reuse and rune-tank in between banishes; otherwise, the lifetap hitting my jugg just kept him at full health forever.)
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2015
  19. Sturmm

    Sturmm Well-Known Member

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    Ah you're right, so I read it wrong. So..... yeah, the limit sucks, lol.
     
  20. wharhogg

    wharhogg Member

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    Trak will blow through charm/normal pets so fast....I would be super impressed if someone pulled this off. Trak =/= Vox or Naggy. The dot+LT and pets/mobs not resisting those at ALL....this kills pets in melee range within 30s. Now something like Sev....it maybe possible.

    Also....the banish wouldnt hit the pets ....so any clothie going into shrooms is toast long before a coth lands.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2015
  21. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    There's really nothing in EJ worth charming against Sev. It's also not worth bothering against Gorenaire; of the outdoor dragons, Talendor is probably the best bet for a charm strategy, and I never found it all that effective against him because of the fear.

    In terms of charm as a viable strategy for killing raid encounters, I *think* we pushed that envelope almost as far as it could be pushed on Al'Kabor. In terms of raid mobs, PoFire minis are the ripest for trivializing charm strategies, though it might have been worth exploring the potential of charm tanking against a couple of PoWater minis as well.

    Outside of Fire, BoT tower bosses and ToSR minis were killed without tanks, but could likely have been killed with similarly-sized forces using a well-geared tank and employing the pets for DPS only (in fact, charm-killers often did tank the dispelling tower boss with a real tank to avoid the need to spam junk buffs). I don't believe charm-tanking would have been of much benefit against RZ or Bertox; I suppose it could have worked well against Rydda'Dar.

    Pre-PoP, charm was of course very useful against some content from previous expansions - notably in VP and Kael - but the really trivializing pets were high-level enough that this only became an issue long after that content was current. (On Live, the AoW was initially killed with charm pets tanking, but SOE nerfed the relevant NPCs; on AK, the killer charm pets of Kael were level 60+.)
     
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  22. xate

    xate Active Member

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    The changes to charmed pets only applies to parties that have 9 entities or more that will be engaging an NPC, it seems like people are confusing that with using charmed pets in general on raid encounters, you will still be able to use charmed pets every way you could before this patch, its just that if an NPC has 9 entities or more on its hate list (charmed pets, summoned pets, players, clerics, etc) it will ignore focusing on charmed pets, thus they cannot be used to tank the mob. You will still be able to use charmed pets as a high risk vs reward DPS supplement, and you will still be able to do small number stuff with a single group and a couple charmed pets tanking. I believe in classic this was known as the 'frozen jesus nerf' as guilds used a Kael NPC to tank AoW with a large amount of healers, with a support crew for charm breaks etc.

    -Adaephon
     
  23. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    I think we're clear on that point, actually :)

    The Kael nerf was a nerf to overpowered charmable NPCs, not to aggro mechanics. The end of charm tanking itself came considerably later, with this LoY-era patch:
    As a side note, we *did* have the final part of the nerf - the missing -50 resist adjust on CoD - on Al'Kabor due to our late-summer-'03 spell data.
     
  24. surron

    surron People Like Me

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    So why is Torven implementing a patch dated 2003? Because he disagrees with charmed pets tanking. Also the above patch does not indicate a limit, where does 9 come from?

    This mechanic does not stop Trak from being killed by pets.

    Say I have 5 enchanters and 5 mages. Trak will attack all the mage pets before going after the enchanters/mages. So All this fix does is require more mages to be spamming pets to prevent all but one being alive at a given time. Can Trak kill 5 mage pets before 1 can be summoned? I doubt it.


    Does the T in TAKP stand for Torven?
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2015
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  25. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    It was already crippled since harmony is level capped at 40. (or should be; if it isn't, it's an error)

    Your posts carry a lot of weight with me, so if you're 100% on something, I take it very seriously. I'll remove that next patch. Yes, Sony devs were wrong on more than one occasion.

    I made it a server rule for very good reasons. One was for other servers to easily disable it or increase the limit. Also in case we changed our minds here. If you don't want it, put in the rule.

    There was a massive flame thread over using pets to kill a golem in fear. I can't imagine that using charm to avoid trak touch and blind would go unflamed.

    Melee are not necessarily excluded from this strategy; they merely go in after Trakanon is sufficiently weakened and pop disciplines. It's rather difficult for tanks to get the MR required to mitigate the lifetap significantly in this era.

    Normal pets are recreated and charmed pets are CHed. I've already witnessed this done on TAKP and the reason it failed was due to trak touch hitting pets.

    Trak touch doesn't warp the pet owner, it hits the pets and fails to do anything. This is why using pets to kill the seru earring mobs works.
     
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  26. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Do you think I would put this in without consulting the other developers? I don't even have administrator under my name here. They want it in more than I do. I'm not married to this.

    AK had plenty of things from Ykesha onwards. Dark blue con range being larger alone makes this server significantly easier for example.
     
  27. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    Thanks again, Torven, for your answers. I'm sorry if this thread stirs up a certain amount of sturm und drang.

    I do think that charm-tanking in large-group situations is pretty much irrelevant prior to PoP. I can't really even think of a situation in which people would *want* to charm tank with more than 9 entities on the hate list before then, so while I do think there are some interesting questions re: server philosophy in play here, the practical ramifications of this change are low and will remain low for a very long time.
     
  28. Ghakim

    Ghakim Well-Known Member

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    Thank you Devs and Torven for implementing the charm limit on tanking mobs. I am greatly in support of this.
     
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  29. xate

    xate Active Member

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    One of us is misunderstanding the patch, the way I understand it in your scenario is that since 5 mages, 5 enchanters, 5 mage pets, and 5 charmed pets = 20 total entities, Trakanon would ignore all 10 pets completely and go after the casters well before he was in danger of dying to pets...

    -Adaephon

    *edit: guess it was me, patch note indicates that NPC will only ignore charmed pets if 9+ entities, not player summoned pets too
     
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  30. Elroz

    Elroz I Feel Loved Staff Member

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    I agree with ghakim and the devs on this one. Feels super cheap winning a raid by using pets to tank, but it still leaves the option for using pets for dps which is good.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2015