Buellen
03-26-2013, 03:44 AM
Hi everyone
I like many of you have noticed how strong casters on our server are from what we remember. I remember a post on this subject by one of the GM of EQ , but could not locate it till today
Question Is p1999 code at or before the "normalization of mobs" ? This was done circa 2006 and applied to all server from my memory.
<just found GM post about rest of normalization i was asking about in my orig post>
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=7625
Old World NPC Adjustments
Jun 30th, 2006 at 10:22 AM by Railus
EverQuest Developer Rashere has offered some insights on the recent changes to Pre-PoP NPCs' AC, hitpoints, and DPS values. As seen on EQLive:
Some NPCs are likely hitting for more and others for less than before the patch. The change involved switching old world NPCs over to newer systems. Old NPCs all had hand-set values, which led to a lot of variance from NPC to NPC even within the same level range due to different designers making different NPCs (the dreaded "under con"). It also made it very difficult to tune since each individual NPC has to be tracked down and changed if you decide a certain range of NPCs needs to be adjusted.
Under the newer system, NPCs of the same level start with the same baseline values and modify from there based on the NPCs capabilities and class (warriors have more hps, giants hit slower and harder, werewolves are vulnerable to fire, golems have low intelligence, etc.) so depending on what the NPC was set at before, it may have gained or lost damage dealing capabilities in the conversion or it may be dealing similar damage, but in a different fashion (hitting harder, but slower for instance).
This only affected NPCs who weren't already on the new system, which is basically NPCs from Original EQ, Kunark, Velious, and Luclin. It was also limited mainly to NPCs below level 50 and excluded event NPCs, which have to be tuned case by case regardless.
If you come across any particular NPC that seems to be way out of line compared to other NPCs of the same level around it, feel free to call it out and I'll go have a look. I'll just need the zone and the full name of the NPC to find it.
Rashere
Different NPCs are still very much their own creatures. The core change here is that there's consistency across races now, but each race of creatures has its own behavior characteristics. You can learn and anticipate behaviors now that you couldn't before because there's a consistency that didn't exist previously in low level creatures. This is the system that we've been using since PoP to make, say, gargoyles act like gargoyles regardless of where they are in the world.
This means that when you've been fighting goblins for a while and learn how they react, you can expect that same behavior to hold true when you run across a goblin in another zone. But that goblin doesn't act like an orc, a skeleton, a giant, a griffin, or any other creature. It acts like a goblin.
Here's a concrete example of what I'm talking about:
Take two level 30 creatures. One is a sand giant. The other is a skeleton. They both are set up with baseline values for a level 30 creature so should be an appropriate fight for that level range, but they act completely different from each other. The sand giant has considerably more hps than the skeleton, for instance. The skeleton attacks a lot faster than the giant, but when the giant hits you...you'll know it. They hit hard. The giant's thick skin gives it an advantage against melee attacks (slight AC advantage), but magic lands relatively easily. By contrast, the skeleton is pretty fragile, but it's undead nature makes landing poison and disease based spells difficult. The skeleton is also mindless and less likely to go after a healer or buffer than the giant is.
Overall, even though they are the same baseline values, the giant acts different than the skeleton does and is a tougher fight because of it.
Rashere
Here's the breakdown of the DPS changes to "a large zelniak" in dawnshroud peaks:
Before the patch: max hit of 74, attack speed of 2.68 seconds
After the patch: max hit of 72, attack speed of 2.59 seconds
If you work the math, the overall DPS dropped by about 0.58 DPS. This particular NPC did pick up some extra attack, though, so is a bit more accurate so we have to take that into account. That boosts its DPS by about 2 on a caster, closer to 1 on a tank (varies a bit by class...that's just averages) making the overall change about a 1.5 DPS increase if you're a caster, 0.5 if you're a tank.
Rashere
This is something we've been wanting to do for a while now. We've been making a big effort to get the low end game into better shape in anticipation of a big push for new players in the near future. We don't often get a chance to work on low end content or revisit those areas and a lot of the changes we're making are aimed directly at that. Setting up the NPCs in this fashion is just part of a bigger picture. There are other changes that we've mentioned in the pipeline as well, such as downtime reduction, and some we haven't discussed much yet, such as modifying zone exp modifiers to make these low end zones more in line with newer zones.
The progression server increased the timeline for the NPC changes since it made sense to get these changes in place before those servers came out instead of after.
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http://crucible.samanna.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2596
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."
Onanist Seedspiller AKA Dyspare Unia (due to GM name change)
55 Shaman
Drinal
frott
Posts: 93
Joined: 23 Sep 2005 20:14
Server: Drinal
HOpe someone can answer or link something with more reveeling information
Buskier 32 human cleric Rodcet nife follower. 1999 skill blacksmith.
I like many of you have noticed how strong casters on our server are from what we remember. I remember a post on this subject by one of the GM of EQ , but could not locate it till today
Question Is p1999 code at or before the "normalization of mobs" ? This was done circa 2006 and applied to all server from my memory.
<just found GM post about rest of normalization i was asking about in my orig post>
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=7625
Old World NPC Adjustments
Jun 30th, 2006 at 10:22 AM by Railus
EverQuest Developer Rashere has offered some insights on the recent changes to Pre-PoP NPCs' AC, hitpoints, and DPS values. As seen on EQLive:
Some NPCs are likely hitting for more and others for less than before the patch. The change involved switching old world NPCs over to newer systems. Old NPCs all had hand-set values, which led to a lot of variance from NPC to NPC even within the same level range due to different designers making different NPCs (the dreaded "under con"). It also made it very difficult to tune since each individual NPC has to be tracked down and changed if you decide a certain range of NPCs needs to be adjusted.
Under the newer system, NPCs of the same level start with the same baseline values and modify from there based on the NPCs capabilities and class (warriors have more hps, giants hit slower and harder, werewolves are vulnerable to fire, golems have low intelligence, etc.) so depending on what the NPC was set at before, it may have gained or lost damage dealing capabilities in the conversion or it may be dealing similar damage, but in a different fashion (hitting harder, but slower for instance).
This only affected NPCs who weren't already on the new system, which is basically NPCs from Original EQ, Kunark, Velious, and Luclin. It was also limited mainly to NPCs below level 50 and excluded event NPCs, which have to be tuned case by case regardless.
If you come across any particular NPC that seems to be way out of line compared to other NPCs of the same level around it, feel free to call it out and I'll go have a look. I'll just need the zone and the full name of the NPC to find it.
Rashere
Different NPCs are still very much their own creatures. The core change here is that there's consistency across races now, but each race of creatures has its own behavior characteristics. You can learn and anticipate behaviors now that you couldn't before because there's a consistency that didn't exist previously in low level creatures. This is the system that we've been using since PoP to make, say, gargoyles act like gargoyles regardless of where they are in the world.
This means that when you've been fighting goblins for a while and learn how they react, you can expect that same behavior to hold true when you run across a goblin in another zone. But that goblin doesn't act like an orc, a skeleton, a giant, a griffin, or any other creature. It acts like a goblin.
Here's a concrete example of what I'm talking about:
Take two level 30 creatures. One is a sand giant. The other is a skeleton. They both are set up with baseline values for a level 30 creature so should be an appropriate fight for that level range, but they act completely different from each other. The sand giant has considerably more hps than the skeleton, for instance. The skeleton attacks a lot faster than the giant, but when the giant hits you...you'll know it. They hit hard. The giant's thick skin gives it an advantage against melee attacks (slight AC advantage), but magic lands relatively easily. By contrast, the skeleton is pretty fragile, but it's undead nature makes landing poison and disease based spells difficult. The skeleton is also mindless and less likely to go after a healer or buffer than the giant is.
Overall, even though they are the same baseline values, the giant acts different than the skeleton does and is a tougher fight because of it.
Rashere
Here's the breakdown of the DPS changes to "a large zelniak" in dawnshroud peaks:
Before the patch: max hit of 74, attack speed of 2.68 seconds
After the patch: max hit of 72, attack speed of 2.59 seconds
If you work the math, the overall DPS dropped by about 0.58 DPS. This particular NPC did pick up some extra attack, though, so is a bit more accurate so we have to take that into account. That boosts its DPS by about 2 on a caster, closer to 1 on a tank (varies a bit by class...that's just averages) making the overall change about a 1.5 DPS increase if you're a caster, 0.5 if you're a tank.
Rashere
This is something we've been wanting to do for a while now. We've been making a big effort to get the low end game into better shape in anticipation of a big push for new players in the near future. We don't often get a chance to work on low end content or revisit those areas and a lot of the changes we're making are aimed directly at that. Setting up the NPCs in this fashion is just part of a bigger picture. There are other changes that we've mentioned in the pipeline as well, such as downtime reduction, and some we haven't discussed much yet, such as modifying zone exp modifiers to make these low end zones more in line with newer zones.
The progression server increased the timeline for the NPC changes since it made sense to get these changes in place before those servers came out instead of after.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://crucible.samanna.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2596
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."
Onanist Seedspiller AKA Dyspare Unia (due to GM name change)
55 Shaman
Drinal
frott
Posts: 93
Joined: 23 Sep 2005 20:14
Server: Drinal
HOpe someone can answer or link something with more reveeling information
Buskier 32 human cleric Rodcet nife follower. 1999 skill blacksmith.