So maybe someone can explain this, or maybe i'll submit a bug if it comes to that. Ancient Aego is 9 buffs down, I junk buff of course like everyone does/did in the old days...Aego is fresh, some new fresh junk buffs, some old I haven't redone in a while. So how is it that Aego is one of the first buffs to go? Does anyone else notice it dispelled much more so than other buffs?
I don't know if it is random, sometimes it doesn't feel random. I usually have my cleric camped and will log cleric on to rebuff. Sometimes I buff, do one pull and it's dispelled only to relog my cleric back in. Dang Froglok enchanters in seb i tell ya.
There's a subjective effect such that you notice what you hate more than you do what is merely annoying. I think that's what makes it feel like the game is hunting your favorite buff sometimes. The only way to tell for reals is to keep records and let the data tell the truth.
Yeah, the burning fiery fury of getting your best, longest-lasting buff dispelled is much more memorable than losing a junk buff. A far lower impact, but sort of interesting effect: IIRC, buffs on TAKP have "strength scores" that influence their odds of getting dispelled; dispel effects also have similar scores. A "weak" dispel will likely kill "weak" buffs, but skip over "strong" buffs. So the best junk buffs are "weak" ones. So maybe aego is weak and your junk buffs are strong, and this explains why your junk buffs often get skipped but aego gets dispelled? I don't know which field in the spell data tells you about buff strength. Buff data has about a billion fields, many with inscrutable names. I could also be totally wrong about this mechanic.
Months and months ago I noticed this more, where I would have Aego in the 13th or 14th slot and it would get dispelled. Then it seemed to correct itself and I saw dispel jumping buffs less and less and would hit my typical Acumen, icicle aura, aura of battle, ring 8, soul energy buffs. I haven't exped in awhile, so maybe it is back again.
This is true for a lot of things in everquest - the NPC AI is dumb and most everything is random, but when they get unlucky players feel like the game is out to get them. It's random and doesn't care for what buff is in that slot, but higher level NPCs will get your top slot more often. Ironically it means that lower level NPCs are more annoying because the slot they'll hit is unpredictable.
A couple anniversary events ago, I spent the entire two weeks at Upper Dogs. There was one class of mob, either cleric or shaman(Maybe??) that would take the top buff every time, and one class between those two, that would take Aego, KEI, or VoG at a very high rate, skipping over buffs. But both dispels took only one buff. At the time I intuitively knew which names would do what and seem to remember one name that could be either, but I could be mistaken about name vs. class. The take away is that all seemingly single-slot dispels are not created equally.
Lol. I definitely considered this but also felt like Aego specifically was targeted more often. So this is a totally AKurrate thing or accurate on live or whatever? I didn’t play on AK. It just doesn’t track with what I remember of EQ. I always remember and have the mindset even when just in exp groups “gotta make sure I get my junk buffs up first”, but what your telling me that in exp groups/lower level zones is where junk buffs matter least of all?
It could be level related on these mobs: an Icepaw kobold priest 48 - 48 Kobold Normal an Icepaw cleric 48 - 48 Kobold Normal an Icepaw prophet 51 - 51 Kobold Normal Maybe there is a sudden level switch with this dispell thing and the priests were the ones giving you the most problems. They all use nullify magic according to allaclone. I will say that I often tank the HP priests and they will always dispell in order. Those are all lvl 60.
I don't know, a lot of things are intentionally mysterious in EQ. Dispelling is server side so we'll never know the full truth until the code is available to study. The way it works on TAKP is that it's random and it doesn't favor specific buffs. Sometimes an NPC will debuff you and then dispel its own debuff too.
here's the old takp discussion on it : Dispel Functionality | The Al'Kabor Project - PoP era Everquest (takproject.net) edited my post because I just rehashed what people said in the thread. The only thing that feels off to me is that I rarely get dispelled and lose 0 buffs on takp. On live I remember being dispelled with low level dispels and losing 0 buffs quite often.
I see it's explained in that linked thread too. It just goes in order and rolls against each buff slot until it gets one or falls off the end. When a boss NPC like Dozekar (level 66) casts a Cancel Magic (9) dispell against you, the chance of it dispelling each slot is 95%. It will almost always hit the first slot, rarely the second, even more rarely the third, etc. It can still hit the 15th slot with your KEI or Aego in it. When a level 48 kobold priest casts 2x Cancel Magic (4) against your level 60 buff, the chance ends up 10%, and each time it fails to dispel a slot, it rolls against the next occupied slot, until it either gets one or all 15 fail. The chance is based on the level difference plus the number in parentheses.
If it does come to that, please be sure to run at least a few hundred debuff simulations and present your findings. I love finding edge cases in my own code but sometimes testing random stuff is... well, it sucks.
The weaker the dispell. The more random it is. Mobs lower level than players. The more random it can be. Nothing takes into consideration what the buff is. Level a cleric to 60. Name them Murphy. And odds of your own cast aego being dispelled, decrease significantly.
This happens so much we joke about the mobs having dispell aego spell. It seems to just skip junks and hits it whatever slot.
When fighting equal or higher leveled mobs aego would have a higher chance of being dispelled than any of the junk buffs unless you are junking with buffs that are of at least the same level as aego Edit: *Wrong*
Higher level junks...hmm that's interesting. Never heard that brought out before. *edit* Not interesting.
Level of spell is not considered. Its random. Based on strength of cancel spell and level diff of dispell caster vs player. H
Look at the math in Solar's example. If Doze has a 95% chance to dispel thanks to the level of his dispel and the mob vs player level difference, then he will hit the top slot 95% of the time, te second slot about 4.75% of the time, the third slot 0.2375% of the time, and so on into very small numbers. The kobold in the example had a 10% chance of landing his dispel. So the odds are 10% of the first slot, 9% second slot, 8.1% third, 7.29% fourth, 6.561% fifth, ~5.9% sixth and so on. Notice how much higher the chances are of hitting later buffs for the lower level mob vs the higher? Its just a consequence of having a lot lower chance of hitting but still being allowed to roll against the entire buff order.
I don't think SOE looked very hard at the math of many of the game elements. Just look at things like vanilla 2h weapon ratios, skill bonuses on gear, attribute scaling, etc etc...
it won’t now. I’m not tech savy, but as I understand it this is hard coded in the game. Nothing our devs have changed or altered, and can’t even if the wanted to? With that being said, everyone’s memory of junk buffing must just be from raid targets that had no problem debuffing the first slot. And Aego being hit is more of that subjective effect Fadetree mentioned.
