I think the reason this happened is because Hobart imported the scripts and population from a future era but he did not consider the spell data and the changes needed there, so spell id numbers in the encounter script point at different effects than they should. Quarm's spells occupy id values 3768-3780 but the spell data we have is missing the ones beyond 3771 and they just happen to be stuff like Timeforged Airblast in the manually patched together data on the client. I'm just speculating, but I think the spells Quarm thought he was casting were different, and just displayed incorrectly in the client since it looks up the message itself from the id. There is at least one other instance of this that I know of where the spell data on the AK server didn't match the data in the client file, the Pacify spell. Items with spell effects were also affected - some have out of range spell ids they reference, and some reference a different effect than expected because of whatever is at that id (Hammer of the Timeweaver). The spells data file is similar to a CSV file and should have the same number of fields for every spell but even this is not true, there are some truncated lines, which is what makes me think Hobart manually copy/pasted these things and introduced some new issues while doing that. I don't think there was ever such a thing as an intentionally hard mode pre nerf Quarm on AK, it was just busted, and it happened to be busted in a way that made it cast deadly spells instead of being inert. There are other examples like plane of air where it was broken in a way that made it easy, possibly for similar reasons like missing spell data causing it to fail.. just guessing though.
I think you're right about the era of the script not matching the era of the spell data, Solar, but if you look at the spell history for the effects in question, it's very clear that the AK effects were originally designed for some untuned and possibly-never-seen version of Quarm. The effects that eventually became Quarm's "familiar" effects were originally: Cinderblast of Time I Dissention of Water I; Dissention of Water II Timeforged Airblast I; Timeforged Airblast II; Timeforged Airblast III And effects called Earthen Collaboration and Corporeal Timeblast that both had versions I, II, III, and IV. These were all replaced with the later versions in the same patch, on 7/10/03, but they're clearly designed to follow the same encounter logic where a Quarm head dies and one effect stops and the others increase in intensity. Not that that means the original effects weren't clearly broken and ridiculous - even if a couple of guilds made it to Quarm and experienced the joy of Timeforged Airblast, nobody killed him until 7/16 - but I do think they're Quarm's effects.
I noticed that when looking at the spell history for the different versions of epoch, they started out as the original quarm spells also. Like Epoch Conviction was "Corporeal Timeblast I" , "Earthen Collaboration II", "Timeforged Airblast II", and "Dissention of Water I". I'm also pretty sure Epoch was his AE that hit through the wall if I remember correctly. Also on the 60 player limit, I really like it, it encourages bringing all main characters and less boxes. The events are hard enough that boxing isn't too fun anyway, and with 12 more raid spots I'm guessing it'd be 12 cleric or wizard boxes in those slots.
The finished version of Quarm casts different copies of each spell even if they're the same. So the phase 2 version of Venomed Mist is different from the phase 1 version. They have a set of spells for each phase basically. I think this is what the script on AK was attempting to do, but in our data, those id numbers are occupied by those placeholder spells instead. This made it difficult to implement Quarm here, as things like Glacier Blast are completely missing and only the phase 1 spells are there.
The first version Afterlife saw for a week in July 2003 casted Corporeal Timeblast which is not in the AK data. (at least the client data) AK's Quarm was machine gunning AoEs without a recast delay. It was totally busted.
Are there logs, from any era, of a Ranger claiming they cannot hit Xegony while she's being tanked on an island with no walls? The encounter is already harder than it ever was on AK. Does it need to be annoying enough that no one ever completes it?
I don't see any walls or corners on Xegony isle...? This archery "fix" seems overly punitive and harsh. Would you consider reverting it to its previous state which seemed quite restrictive, but made it still usable?
I don't see them though. Should invisible walls and doodads stop arrows? Visible doors don't seem to stop them.
I agree, I don't think we're being treated fairly in this. We only have 1 really outstanding capability, it's supposed to the defining archetype capability, and it takes a lot of time and effort to even turn it on to where it doesn't completely suck, and it seems the devs feel that it is an overpowering capability. I don't know what all went on during AK, but live seemed to have no occurrences of rangers constantly ganging up and rendering content trivial...except maybe on The Uzi Day. There aren't even really enough EQ/AM3 rangers to do that anyway. I like it here, but the feeling I get overall is that rangers are just supposed to shut up about archery and be a mediocre melee. I have no problem with having positional challenges, but this seems like overkill. Telling people to not corner is useless, that's going to happen no matter what. Having things blocked by geometry is always going to be hard to get right since there is so much variation and special stuff like invisible walls. If low aggro is the problem, then turn it up some. Especially during TS. Then it would be self limiting.
It is a choice to corner, though. It's even a choice to wall mobs at all. The positioning challenge seems like a reasonable tradeoff for low-aggro archery damage, and it's an AKurate (and accurate to PC live as well; the archery wall bug wasn't fixed until March of 2004) one. On AK, we tanked both Fennin and Xegony free range, i.e. not touching any walls at all, in part for this reason.
Yes, Ok. It's true I get a bit hyperbolic on the subject in general. I know the devs see things I do not. I still agree with showstring though, this seems be going a bit beyond the intention. Maybe it will get further tuned.
I get it! Sorry to be so relentlessly literal. It's a personality flaw of mine. I'm not unsympathetic. In Luclin, presented with the same choice - corner or archery? - we generally said "to heck with arrows! Corner everything!" Not much fun for our rangers. In PoP, the incentives shift in favor of ranged DPS because there are so many burn fights (and so many 100-range AEs, and so much AE rampage ...).
I agree with this. People are starting to ditch their Rangers after this last nerf and that is unfortunate. Not all walls work when you wall them. Any roundness at all and you're done. The reality is that on AK, there were sweetspots where you could corner a mob and have arrows hit it. Its mentioned on the forums.
The issue with this, is that it's all anecdotal at this point. And while I have my own anecdotes concerning this, it's understandable why the dev team would exercise caution in entertaining those anecdotes. While my opinion hasn't changed (that the corner / wall bug should be completely eradicated), I respect the decisions that have been made here, and moved on from / came to terms with those decisions years ago. My experiences thus far with the new archery nerf is that it feels pretty similar to AK. I haven't tested Z axis corner hitting yet, but am excited to next time we do LMM. The only real issue I may have is with rounded walls like in PoWater. While I haven't personally experienced this yet since I haven't been playing in those types of zones, it sounds like more than a few rangers have been frustrated. Would it be possible to just turn off the new archery/wall code in zones where this would be an issue? Or is it possible for the core wall detection code to modified somehow to be more forgiving on curved / featured walls?
Your can't melee due to AE ramp being unavoidable, and you can't ranged attack either. Wtf are you supposed to do exactly, one warrior and 59 clerics?
We already have all the EP god AE ranges not being 100 range but instead 125 or something. Now archery is defunct. We should double down and make concussion not work if it gets resisted. Also, make range focus effect items not work on CH so we can only use Supernal Remedy to heal our tanks on EP god fights. I forget what TAKP stands for, but the AK I doubt is Al'kabor
cool, well, must be nice to have a full raid of humans 1 boxing melees, but you know, for the rest of the server that's kinda a bit more challenging
Melee DPS do kinda get screwed in PoP. AE rampage and short-range AEs wreck their DPS in a lot of fights. Some say that on Live (and maybe AK?), melee could range AE rampage while still swinging their swords if they *very carefully* calibrated their positioning at max melee range. As far as I can tell, that's not possible on TAKP today, but maybe someday...? Regarding rangers? They still make or break fights for Tem on a nightly basis. I get that some rangers are sad about this recent change toward AKuracy and balance, but your big picture, your class is amazingly strong in PoP.
I recall with vivid clarity cornering Gintolaken while I melee'd safely just out of his target ring. Target ring basically used to be an AE Ramp indicator. However the fact that I remember the ring means it was post-LoY and I can't speak to AK's timeline.
Invisible walls are still walls. PBAoE spell radii on Al'Kabor had a range extension. I didn't just put it in because I felt like it. Data mining the client isn't always reliable. Some of the Time AoEs have completely incorrect recast delays as well, which is super obvious when checking logs. Developers have been quoted as saying they put in false data to trick players. Avoiding AoE rampage while meleeing will be possible (with some trial and error) next update. Archery collision logic cannot be replicated precisely. It took a lot of work just to get it to this point. The result is that it will work sometimes when it should not and not work sometimes when it should. This cannot be helped. We currently do not have arrow collision on PCs and PC pets enabled either. Old logs clearly show rangers engaging in melee a lot of the time in PoWater and with large stretches of time when arrows aren't landing (like 30+ seconds). So if we obtained Sony source code and implemented it, you're not going to get full archery damage either way. Furthermore our current logic allows for things like Area Taunt to be much more reliable; it often failed if an NPC was pushed on top of things (e.g. picture frames or bookcases in PoTime) on Sony's servers. Here the NPC isn't really on top of these things and is on the floor server-side but it appears differently on the client. You win some you lose some.
Eh, I accept it well enough at this point. It is kind of fun having the raid cooperate on push and bowing to the whims of rangers as we yell at their mistakes!
I don't know if I feel very stupid for being the most powerful, versatile class in the hardest zone of the game.
