Big changes to NPCs on test/prog server

[frott]

This was posted by Maddoc:
Hey everyone,

In the last few years, much has changed in the world of EverQuest, which is a great thing for all of us -- It's what keeps us all interested in the game and enjoying the time we spent playing.

In developing a server like this, we have to be mindful and aware of those changes such that we can make an informed decision on what course of action to take when addressing any issues as they come up. As you might imagine, there are years worth of content to be aware of, enough so that some of the changes require a lot of time.

The change that I'm about to explain makes huge strides towards dealing with what you guys feel is one of the biggest issues to overcome for this server. This same change is also why I've been largely unavailable for the last week or two. The change is not small, affecting a great portion of EverQuest and it's NPC's, nor is the change to be taken lightly, needing as much testing time as you guys are able to muster. If you have a character and haven't participated in beta for a week or two, I'd encourage you to please log in and test everything out.

With that said, the changes that have been made are going to affect a number of NPC attributes in an effort to address the power disparity between melee-classes and caster-classes in the early stages of progression on these servers. So, without further ado...

* NPC Health - This has been increased on average for most NPC's.
* NPC Armor Class - This has been reduced on average for most NPC's.
* NPC Overall DPS - The overall dps done by NPC's has been reduced slightly on average for most NPC's.
o NPC Damage - This has been reduced on average for most NPC's.
o NPC Melee Speed - This has been reduced slightly (meaning they hit faster than previously) on some NPC's, though most will be roughly the same.
* NPC Resists - This remains largely unchanged, staying the same on average for most NPC's.

* NPC Effective Spellcasting Level - In the last year or so, PC spells got a pretty big boost in power, which means that NPC's also got a pretty good sized boost in power as well. I think the best way to address this is to get a means to specify an NPC's spellcasting-level independent of it's actual level.

As an example, this means that I can now tell a level 50 NPC to only cast level 42 and lower spells, without changing the NPC's level at all. With this functionality, I can reduce the spellcasting power of the NPC's without reducing anything else. With this change, you should see a very noticeable change in the NPC's spellcasting power, particularly in the level 25 to 40 range.

* DISCLAIMER : Given the nature of these changes, I'm speaking of an 'average', so there will be situations where an NPC or small group of NPC's that now resist more now than they did previously, likewise you will see situations where an NPC or small group of NPC's will resist less now than they did previously. This applies to all of the information listed above.

I've made these adjustments to about 70% of the NPC's so far and that data will be hitting the server this afternoon. There are still some NPC's that have not been fully converted yet, so I'll post when those are done as well.

There's one more thing that I have on my plate to do to address some of the melee concerns (that I'm sure will be posted in this thread), so stay tuned and please throw as much testing as you can at this change."

[Bernz]

Quick version of this is: We are messing with everything that we've had in place now for 7 years. Gee I hope this works, let us know!

[GheffGutterbrains]

[Jaraman]

[Scowls]

[WaringMcMarrin]

[Zilaza]

[Finori]

[KB]

[Beafly]

[KB]

Not every "boss" mob is an event NPC is it?

[Kozinad]

[Scalia]

[Jeis]

[WaringMcMarrin]

[avelariel]

[Kozinad]

[Galelor]

[Grumilla]

The last two nights I've had my 51 Shammy out in Dranks Scar doing factioning/xp.
It's nearly impossible for me to land a spell sometimes. I'll get 3 or 4 resists in a row to my slow
and my malo. After casting slow 5 times to get it to stick, I'm nearly OOM and the mob is almost dead anyway. I'm basically dead weight out there.

What's the best way for me so increase the likelihood that my spells will actually land?

[Galelor]

[Grumilla]

[Scalia]

Well, Grumilla wrote that s/he was getting "3 or 4 resists in a row to my slow and my malo", so I don't think that more maloxxx would help much. Level 51 Shamans don't have unresistable Malo(s) that level 60+ Shamans have, so there isn't a whole lot they can do about resists or at least I can't think of anything atm.

As far as fighting lower level mobs goes, we are apparently talking about grouping here and the group may have its own ideas about what mobs they want to fight. Manawise, I remember Turgur's being tough on my mana when I got it at 51. Assuming a level 51 Shaman has around 2K mana, 5 casts x 250 mana plus a Maloxxx or two adds up to well over 50% of the mana pool

[Galelor]

[Scalia]

[Grumilla]

[Tarnnok]

[Galelor]

[Tineren]

I am pretty sure that the resist modifier for level of spell is a PvP only rule. There isn't any difference in PvE between landing a 51 spell and landing a 38 spell if they both have no resist modifier.

[jdthomas]

I've always found nocs and kyvs to be among the most resistant mobs sub-mpg. Murkgliders and dragorns hardly seem to resist anything, might give the murk camp a try. Murks are pretty much easy fodder throughout oow.

-edit-
Maybe its ukuns and kyvs, can't recall. Anyways I hate kyvs

[ThraallFV]

when casting malxxx (restable varity) i always would alternate wuth slow since slow has the awesome recast time anywho

[Grokii]

I was messing around in DS last night and at 70 I was having to malos them to get turg to land. Then I woke up and figured they were only hitting me for 40-120 and cast a HoT on myself instead. I never had that resist once.