How sure are you of that Fox? You have told me you were a rock, or a torch, or even a campfire. But you still looked the same to me. I didn't want to be rude, so I just kinda went along with you.
What I see is a few people trying to force change via an uprising against what staff think is best. I do not see this ending well.
Ahh, sorry that we're coming across that way. Ultimately, we're all happy to be here and I will be sticking around no matter the decision laid down. We just get a bit passionate about arguing our points I suppose. Ranger lovers and all! The old AK bug ended up bringing like 3 separate discussions into one thread and making a bit of a complex mess of things. More aggro; all arrows or no arrows hitting in corners; macros or no macros...really there is no completely Akkurate solution that will make everyone happy. We wish to...feel more Akkurate, but there's no completely Akkurate way to make that happen. I suppose we have made our case the best we can now, if no one else has anything to add. We hope for a middle ground of sorts, but understand the inherent issues that come with any decision made on this, whether it is leaving it the same or changing it. Personally, I would prefer a large increase to aggro that makes us use Jolt and wait a long while to disc, but get why that's also not an easy change to make. Thank you for taking the time to hear us out and for going into some deep log diving. I certainly appreciate the effort put into this.
It's a large enough deviation that even I'm not comfortable with it either, really. I would like to point out that our code allows all arrows to hit at any angle when the NPC is against a single wall. So you're winning some and losing some. If I can figure out more detail about how shots may have landed on cornered stuff, then I'll think about an approximation of it. Incidentally the DPS parsing I've done today had me discover a couple of bugs that were favoring a certain non-ranger class, and will be nerfed/fixed. I'll leave people guessing for the time being.
My first hunch is monks, but I believe you've tweaked their triple attack several times already. My next guess would be something to do with AA's, and I'm not sure who gets profound class-specific DPS AA's in Luclin, beyond Wizards. My third guess is beastlords. Perhaps their pets have performed too well (because of Luclin-era stat scaling, it's hard to judge Velious DPS) or if they've been off the knight damage table. Then again, I just covered every meaningful non-rogue DPS class.
I appreciate you guys looking hard at this issue. I have probably stirred the pot enough and honestly, without AK experience, I can only look at the mass of this thread as a guide for what archery on raids was like there. I am having fun in Luclin and so I will leave it at thank you devs for a kick ass launch and que sera sera on cornered mobs.
Slay Undead nerfed before a single Paladin obtained the AA? For shame!!! A couple of bugs would guess the rate was wrong (likely procing too much on slow, heavy-hitting 2h weapons – ironically Slay works best with fast weapons like the Primal 20/20 knight slasher) and the damage multiplier was also too generous.
This is sort of like suggesting to heal without complete heal. Cornering a mob is the most natural and easiest way to handle a mob. Because push is negated in this scenario. Even the best guilds on Live through the years failed at pushing. You can have even numbers of Melee and put them on opposite sides of the mob but the game is so RNG based that inevitably you will push that mob around. Different delay on weapons, different Overhaste values, RNG rolls on hit success and DW checks and Double/triple attacks, etc. Even attempting to Wall pin it you will have some people at 85 degree angles or the rogues will overpower the Tanks etc. When a mob gets pushed around, the time it takes to adjust Melee characters to get back in range — we aren’t even talking boxes Melee, we don’t allow them on our raids — that lost DPS time from a round of Melee here and there negates the benefit of rangers going archery over Melee, so you’re better off cornering it anyways. Yea you could do this. You also could just heal a tank with Ethereal Lights and Remedies too. But the surefire thing is what every guild is going to default to on most mobs unless it have extreme circumstances that prevent cornering. Geometry, massive AEs, or AE Rampage.
Ya, and considering the 15-20 dumbfire pets are probably going to out-damage a couple rangers trueshotting, it's not worth not cornering a mob for the sake of a few rangers.
I always thought it was pretty easy, maybe push on regular was different than AK. Paladins alone should be able to manage the push for an entire raid. Edit: Though I do understand that this topic is about more than just this. To recreate the bug or not to recreate the bug...
The goal is to recreate AK. Fix broken content. Bug fixes are subjective. Archery not working on walled mobs is a bug to rangers. Its a feature of how archery worked on AK. Fix or not? General consensus is to fix it to be more like AK. Changing archery to work on all mobs, walled or not, is a huge balance issue. You can argue its not, but you are 100% full of it. And you know it. I will vote to increase monk ac. I would even support monks being in their pre-pop un-nerfed state. I will not support making archery dps unbridled.
I've accepted that we likely won't change your minds on this matter, and that the corner bug never being fully understood on either live or AK makes Torven's attempts at a future recreation a long shot (though I am of course very thankful he is putting thought and time into it,) but just wanted to say that there is no attempt to mislead, here. I will continue to respectfully disagree on that point, though. We do not believe we are full of it, and believe the ease of just having wizard boxes with convenient hotkeys will always be preferable, especially if macroing is disallowed. We are speaking our genuine opinions and experiences of/with the bug, and the ranger class as a whole. I am told non-90 angle corners cause tanking issues, and walling a mob just won't be worth it when so much damage is coming from the cleric/wizzy pet swarm+having to readjust melees. Rangers are not worth going out of the way for with our boxing environment; it's just how it is.
If we're continued to be allowed to macro archery, and archery continues to leave rangers at the near bottom of the hate list, then perhaps you are right that fixing the bug would cause a balance issue. This is why I was trying to steer the conversation towards wanting to see rangers who aren't careful summoned and killed half-way through a fight, and to us needing to mash our archery key once again - in exchange for the bug fix. However, if this is straying too far from AK in your mind, then I completely understand. Whatever you guys decide in the end, I am willing to accept. I am just glad this conversation happened (is happening).
What about having a wizard pushing it out of the corner so you can shoot it? The spell Torven linked is cheap and has a 2 unit push. Is that actually workable? You just push the direction the tank is facing, out of the corner?
we usually have melee push and 10 to 20 dumbfire pets (Wiz and clerics). While a wizard sacrificing his DPS to TS it out of the corner is fine, it won't stay out of said corner long enough to matter.
iirc that spell causes a huge amount of aggro. Hardly worth the 2 unit push (that will quickly be undone) in lieu of a sunstrike. I haven't chimed in yet because my rationale won't hold much weight with the devs, but seeing as I'm already posting.. I think the archery bug should be fixed. I agree this is not AKurate, but as has been mentioned in the thread already, some bugs from AK have been fixed here because the state of AK sometimes differed from developer intent. It sucked for rangers on AK not being able to hit cornered mobs, and the fact that it persists here is unnecessary. Archery is THE defining skill of the ranger class. If a giant dragon is sticking 90% of it's ass out of a corner, it should be susceptible to arrows. I'm not sure about the balance argument either. EQ is inherently an unbalanced game. One class can solo high end raid content, while another can struggle with light blues in highkeep. That is the nature of the game at an individual level. But every class has their niche to fill on raids, and for rangers that is WS aggro generation and ranged DPS. I don't play a ranger, and hope that I never do, but it would be nice to see a glaring BUG such as no LOS on cornered mobs be fixed in this next-iteration polished recreation of AK.
I am leaning towards: Content related - fix bugs Everything else - AKurate Even putting in full mana from mental corruption. I am so over the Ranger BS. You guys are 10x worse than monks.
Simple solution: nerf Wizard dps to equal Ranger dps. Everyone sucks the same so everyone will be happy. Feel the Bern.
We shall bring everyone down with us! Bwahahaha! Even Shadowknights, since apparently even they rival our bow DPS once PoP comes along, based on those Bertox logs.
I didn't want to jump in here while the convo was still hot but since it appears to have fizzled out a bit I have an off topic question: As it currently stands, which melee class is topping the DPS charts on TAKP for general raid content? Rogues? I too wish to echo thanks to the dedicated staff and passionate players that make this server a great place. I'll hit 60 someday <3
