Highlights: Veeshan's Peak is now open. Code: https://github.com/EQMacEmu/Server/pull/549 Haynar * Packet Logging improvements. * Moved some logic for some extra checks associated with logging. * Server to Client packet logging, will now show the actual opcode along with the translated name. The emu opcode was shown before, which provided no value added. * Charm fixes - again. Robregen * change the default setting for TradeskillSkillUpModifier to 0 * Fix mob overpopulation on "idle" zones (Noudess) Torven * NPCs will now be more selective when deciding which spell to cast. * NPCs will now only cast slows on melee classes. * Targeted AoE spells that hit entities other than the caster's target will now check LoS with the target instead of the caster again. * Low health aggro now tapers with distance after 100 distance. * NPCs may now charm pets. * Summoned pets that get charmed will now return to their owners when charm fades. * NPCs that get charmed by other NPCs will no longer hate the casting NPC after charm fades. * NPCs may now have multiple charmed pets. * Pets charmed by NPCs will now get that NPC's top hated entity and a random hated entity in their hate lists, with a very slight preference for the random entity. * Summoning a pet will now add a very small amount of hate, subject to witness checks. * Attempting to charm an NPC while having a pet will now result in the proper 'only one pet at a time' message instead of 'this NPC cannot be charmed.' * NPCs with heal spells will now start healing at 50%, up from 35%. * Non-pet NPCs will now be able to land spells on clients in different regions. (i.e. underwater) * Pet backstabs will now do max hit * 3 damage. * Mana reduction from specialization now applies to every spell cast. * Charmed pets no longer cast the gate spell at low health. * Accepting a resurrection spell now removes the player from hate lists. * Intellectual Superiority and similar buffs will now reduce fizzle rates. * Fizzle code reworked: Minimum fizzle chance is now 2%. Fizzle reduction from prime stat is now 1% per 10 above 75, capped at 12.5%. Bard fizzle prime stat is now either char or dex, whichever is higher. Fizzle reduction from specialization is now specialize skill / 10. Note that some spells are intended to still have a high fizzle rate. These changes are not precise. They are estimates based on limited data, and may be changed in the future. Database: Robregen * sepsis / necrosis in Sebilis should now drop a gem everytime. * readjust sepsis / necrosis spawnrates in Sebilis. * Changed item name from 'Dismembered Finger' to 'Ring-scored Talon' * Changed item name from 'Dismembered Thumb' to 'Intricate Toothed Ring' * Changed item name from 'Mutilated Forearm' to 'Petrified Talonless Claw' * Drolvargs should now be kos to halflings. * fixed the loottable for Quid Rilstone so Siryn Hair should drop more commonly than Man-o-War * Fixed the loottablse for Nilipus so he should now always drop a brownie (parts or others) * added missing loottables for 'a mosquito' in cabilis catacomb. Torven * Trakanon's atk reduced. * Resist magic removed from default NPC spell sets.
forgot to mentioned. * Quilmane loot has been adjusted. * Spiroc Warrior should no longer spawns around the bird houses area in TD.
Went through 3 full mana bars on two characters and still unable to get pet spell to cast due to fizzles so I just gave up and quit...is this an intentional effect? Level 30 toons with ~65 conjuration skill.
Also wondering if the current fizzle rates are intended. On the first spell I tried to cast (level 54 with 135 abjuration) I fizzled 18 times before the spell went through. Abjuration is also a skill that I have tried to actively level to little success, typically taking over 50 casts for 1 skill up with over 200 int. I've tried chain casting for an hour with no skill ups. At this rate you can basically expect to fizzle away your entire mana pool on anything other than your primary casting skill for that class. Is it intended for fizzle rates to be so high and so difficult to level the casting skills (rather than one or the other)?
Heh I doubt it, everyone is fizzling like crazy. I am sure he will fix it soon. There seems to be a sort of threshold for fizzles though, if you have a very high skill (ie: Maxed or close to max) then you will fizzle rarely, which is better than it used to be. But the problem seems to be that if your skill is low, then it fizzles far too often. This must make newer characters impossible to play because you can't even level up your skill if it fizzles so much. But I'm sure it will be fixed soon.
Get levelling those casting skills. Seems much closer to AK than what we had before. I specifically remember getting KEI and sitting in POK for hours levelling my casting skills so that I didn't blow entire mana pools trying to cast spells when I was out xpin or campin things.
It is closer to live and other servers. On PEQ the Soulbinder in PoK was able to be cast on (and wouldn't aggro), so you could just get clarity and stand there for an hour casting all your stuff on her. This change makes it more like that. But you have to be able to cast lower level spells to level up. Not sure if that is possible with this amount of fizzles. I haven't tested yet, my characters are maxed on all but divination.
To a degree, I can understand the arguments for maxing casting spells, BUT the practical effect of this abrupt change in behavior seems to be punitive on newbs like my guys who now can't level until I spend the time to go level the skills, whereas folks who've been playing for a long time have already maxed the skills. It would be ideal if such a thing were introduced gradually to give us a chance to catch up rather than all at once. And in regard to that argument - I would like to advance one counter-argument: how does it serve the game for people to be forced to sit in POK for hours casting a spell over and over just to max their skill? Doesn't this just point to a flaw in game design, where the nature of a class has been designed such that casting one type of spell - say, conjuration for pet - rarely happens in the normal course of game play? Why should playing a toon the way it was designed be cause for what feels like punitive action? That's already built into the high cost of casting the pet in the first place. If nothing else, maybe make the chance at skillup correlate with mana cost of spell, so if it costs me 200 mana to cast a pet, I can get one or even multiple skillups on that cast. That way, by playing the game the way it was designed for this class, I have a better chance of skilling up - just like melee characters who get loads of skillups in offense, defense, weapons skills, etc for actually being in melee.
Well, do we want it to be accurate to AK as much as possible (regardless of how much it didn't make sense) or do we want to create just another custom EQ server?
You can absolutely cast the lowest level spell you have and it wont fizzle all the time. Currently working up my conjuration on my 54 shaman with Summon:Food, for that the fizzle rate is not an issue. There may be an argument made that maybe skill-up rate is too low, but I don't really have any evidence either way. Dagnarok, devs don't have time to slowly implement changes just so people have an easier time. It also really doesn't make sense, how can people give feedback for something that everyone knows isn't implemented yet? With regards to flaws in game design, you can make that argument about any number of things in EQ. What you end up with by following that train is the watered down, fast paced, mercenary loaded game that EQLive is. I do understand that this patch did impact gameplay and may be frustrating for some people until skills get leveled or something changes code wise. I am now spending my playtime leveling skills as well. But this is part of EQ, for better or for worse.
its a shock value, if this fizzle rate code was in from day one of server launch no one would really have a problem with it. Its kinda like the melee patch, we did too much dmg ect. we knew it was wrong but it became the norm and near the end in our heads it seemed normal. maybe for now skill rate could be bumped just to help people get over the shock of low skill fizzles, but few months from now it will be back to being the norm. I too remember sitting over night afk with a caster or bard in PoK chain casting spells for skill ups on AK, is it a flaw in game design? I don't think it is.
This is a good change. Fizzle rate and skill level should be tied tightly together; previously, they were only passing acquaintances. The situation will now be worse if your skills are low, but much better once they're capped. Load up your fastest-casting, cheapest level 1 spell in a skill, drop a stack of coins on the keyboard, and go do something else. Come back, med up, and repeat. It shouldn't take long to catch up, and it's something you can do mostly AFK. Catch up on your housework, read a book, binge something on Netflix (The Great British Bake Off is surprisingly compelling, if you'd like a suggestion).
what skill and spell were you trying to skill up? I have no problem skilling up adjuration and conjuration using the lowest level spells.
I regularly try to level my divination using sense summoned. Occasionally I will get a skill up but its more common to cast for 10 minutes or more at a slow camp with no skill ups. I also invis and see invis my group a lot. Int is well over 200. Divination is stubbornly stuck somewhere just over 100 and short of leaving a stack of coins on it for a few weeks it doesn't seem practical to level. Skill ups in general seem too slow after the (somewhat) recent changes. I don't think mend has had a single skill up since then and I make a point of using it on cooldown.
Divination. I fizzle invis (lvl 30) at lvl 60 40+ times per cast, my wisdom is 210 and skill 93 Based on the stated algorithm it should be around 10% fizzle rate. I've cast serpent sight (lvl 9) more times than I can count and have gotten 0 skillups from it. I did get one point during one of my successful invis casts today though (less than 10 casts). That's not right.
Do you realize how wrong this is? You're stating it's good to change the game to require you to NOT PLAY it in order to play it?!?! The fizzles after this patch do not match my recollection of AK/Live rates. Many of these mechanics were deliberate time-sinks for a paid time based subscription model, and while an accurate reproduction of the AK server is the goal here you can already see where changes are/were made that go against the way things actually functioned in the spirit of "fixing things". Skill-ups are pretty slow relative to level unless you're constantly forcing skill checks. So please tell me how (in a game where people are encouraged to group) game mechanics that force the population to first sit AFK for HOURS/DAYS spamming skills is fun or productive? It certainly isn't challenging to leave a key mashed for hours. It's a slippery slope where fixes end up taking more than giving. Extremely slow skill-ups and fizzles merely force people to drive around the issue not through it.
Lots of QQ over fizzle rates? OMGOZERS!!!!! We fizzle a level 60 spell almost non-stop with 32 skill in ABJ?!!??? The sky is falling!!!!!
people seem to forget the mass amounts of people who would afk skillup all day in pok on AK. 20% extra exp, a trio to always level with, zones with high zems EQUALS toons with lower than average spell skills. my bard on AK was 100% useless until each skill was over 200, and it was crazy because it took 2+ weeks of over night playing to skill each instrument
That is straight up untrue. As a bard starting on there in late 2008, I can say from experience the majority of combat-based songs even pre-20 (heal, slow/snare, selo's, self-haste, group-haste, damage shield, single-target damage, ae damage) had a pretty low "missed a note" (read: fizzle) rate, i'd say 15% at most and that's being generous. Yeah, to raise brass and wind you'd have to spend some afk time with an instrument and leave a song running, mostly because the only but you got plenty of percussion skillups just during normal travel with selo's and drum, string skillups and healing up between fights with a lute equipped playing heal song, and singing skillups from normal combat songs. There are several differences to that experience and what is currently happening on TAKP: 1 - bards don't blow through mana bars on fizzles. You can still practice a skill even if you get 30 fizzles in a row, because once your song plays it will continue to play until you stop it and will give you skill ups during that time. 1 successful cast = multiple skillups (i recall from AK with a dex of 150 and cha of 150 it was about 20-30 per hour AFK for the "worst" offenders, brass and wind). 2 - bards can still play songs even after getting 30-40 fizzles in a row, which NEVER happened on AK. And even if those 30-40 fizzles happened, once you get that first song going you can play it indefinitely for your group. If a caster fizzles 30-40 times in a row, the caster is typically out of or low on mana has to med before even getting to try again. 3 - I also played a wizard, shaman, mage and necro from level 1 - 62 on AK. I solo'ed the necro from 1-52. I never experienced fizzles rates on any of those toons to the extent that I did last night. I used invisibility even less on my AK shammy than I do on TAKP, and even with a divination skill in the teens I never blew half a mana bar in the 50s trying to cast a level 29 spell (invisibility). I never with ANY spells ever got more than 10-11 fizzles in a row on AK, even trying to cast the current highest level pet as a shammy with a low conjuration skill (20-40 range) in the 30s, 40s and 50s. I never even got more than 10 fizzles in a row on Douggy 1.0 as an untwinked wizard from levels 1-23! Last night on my 51 shammy with 105 wisdom, I was fizzling 20-30 times in a row attempting to cast level 29 invis. With a conjuration skill around 95-100 I was getting 14-15 fizzles in a row trying to cast my SECOND highest level pet (level 44 spell). 4- Skill up rates: With 105 wisdom on my shaman, I was averaging about 20-25 casts per skillup in the 40s. Given the fizzle rates that I experienced last night, new toons are going to blow through their entire mana bar to even cast a spell in the first place. I can't imagine the number of mana bars its going to take a new toon to get the relatively quick skillups at levels 1-5 when it only takes 6 or 7 casts per skill increase. Tweaking the fizzle rate & casting skillup rate is a-okay. Maybe it should be different on here than it was on AK, I love our server and will play on it either way. But please don't tell me "this is how it was on AK" because I had alot of experience on AK and know as a fact that's not true. I am pleased to read the gem drop rate on bugs in Sebilis was increased to how I remember on AK though =) Just a note that they never dropped gems *every* time, I'd say an 80% rate is closer to accurate. Usually every 2-3 clears I'd get one or two that only coughed up crystallized sulfur, but it would be made up by a scarab occasionally dropping 2 gems at once.
*no edit feature and that 2nd sentence reads poorly. *Yeah, to raise brass and wind you'd have to spend some afk time with an instrument and leave a song running, mostly because invis & EB songs required a flute, and dual wielding weapons in combat was alot more efficient than the 30% boost a normal instrument would give. But you got plenty of percussion skillups just during normal travel with selo's and drum, string skillups and healing up between fights with a lute equipped playing heal song, and singing skillups from normal combat songs.
Hi all, I commend the accuracy of matching proper fizzle hard cap values, what I do believe needs to be altered is the skill up rate. If the TAKP server did not provide an accurate rate of growth for max skill at any given level over the server cycle, you have locked in your committed playerbase to an un-accurate rate of character growth. Your community wants to log in, play and have fun, that why we are all here! I believe the dev can come up with a healthier compromise. My feedback and suggestion simply is, increase the skill rates at least for the current playerbase to have an accurate rate of character growth. Give people time to adjust to the big change, you'll win folks over. Best Regards,
I was talking about a naked bard lvl 65 trying to play 61+ spells. He's 100% useless and it took 2 weeks over night playing to max all instrument skills. anyways though I could be wrong about the fizzle rates on TAKP, here is a link talking about a fizzle change to live in 2008, maybe someone can find more information on it. http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/soearchive/viewtopic.php?t=130437 they talk about how after the change if the skill isn't maxed then you'll receive a ton of fizzles.
