Non-classic issues in PoSky

[DoucLangur]

Dear Devs,

as a very active raider in PoSky (basically knowing it inside out) on EQ live, I would like you nevertheless to understand that my post here is based on one assumption:
From what I know, PoSky never experienced a patch that changed the way the zone works, on live. At least not until Velious/Luclin, which is when I started raiding here.

There are a couple of things that are VERY different from the way Plane of Sky worked on EQlive, so I will make a list instead of submitting every issue separately. I am sure you are aware of some of those issues. And maybe some can not be implemented in the classic way. But it changes the content so much that I feel these things should be adressed. I have not yet gotten past Pegasus Isle, so I will only adress the things I encountered up to there, and what I *heard* people say about Spiroc isle (you will know whether this is true or not).

1) Porting in Sky: I am not sure if the PoSky port actually worked on classic, so I won't challenge that mechanic. However, it was DEFINITELY possible to proc the Worker's Sledgemallet (OT hammer). Only spells with a casting mechanic were inhibited in sky. Procs where not!

2) Teleport pads: It is incredibly hard to click them with the proper key. This is critical when a raid wants to port up to an island with aggro relatively fast
3) Azerack Isle: There was no placeholder azerack on live. Instead, the Protector of Sky would spawn upon the death of the last azerack, regardless of killing order
4) Gorgalosk Isle: Gorgalosk responds to Hails. So far, this is correct. However, it was possible (for pulls) to keep Gorgalosk from pathing back to his spawnpoint by spamming Hails. This is not the case on p1999. I spammed hails in about 1-second intervals on our last raid there and he eventually roamed back nevertheless. He should not stand still for long, but 3-5 seconds or so seems about right after the last hail. While moving, he should *definitely* stop when hailed from within Hail range.
5) Pegasus Isle: All griffins and pegasi were roamers(!) on live. That was what made this isle a little tricky with adds. They are pretty much if not completely stationary on p1999, trivializing this island.

Unconfirmed by me:
6) Spiroc Isle: I have heard from a few people now that there is no safe spot for a camp on Spiroc Isle, and that the spirocs have no significantly reduced aggro range.

Mobs on this island have an incredibly large assist range, so far so good. However, their *aggro* range was on the other extreme: VERY small. Not much larger than that of a pacified mob. It was very safe to invis up to Spiroc Isle and move a few meters away from the portin to drop invis and summon corpses if you needed to bridge people.
7) Not sure if this is implemented: While charmed (i.e. by Gorgalosk), it is possible to run off an island. At some point during the fall, possibly even before zoning would happen, if charm had not worn off, the server would determine an invalid location in the zone and teleport the player in question to a safe spot on Isle 1. This would give people a chance not to lose their keys in such a situation.


Sorry for the long read. But fixing some of those issues would make PoSky much more fun to raid in.

Kind regards

Slozem/Sherrypie

[nilbog]

1) Porting in Sky: I am not sure if the PoSky port actually worked on classic, so I won't challenge that mechanic. However, it was DEFINITELY possible to proc the Worker's Sledgemallet (OT hammer). Only spells with a casting mechanic were inhibited in sky. Procs where not!This should be researchable/testable.

2) Teleport pads: It is incredibly hard to click them with the proper key.Will look into it.


3) Azerack Isle: There was no placeholder azerack on live. Instead, the Protector of Sky would spawn upon the death of the last azerack, regardless of killing order
4) Gorgalosk Isle: Gorgalosk responds to Hails. So far, this is correct. However, it was possible (for pulls) to keep Gorgalosk from pathing back to his spawnpoint by spamming Hails. This is not the case on p1999. I spammed hails in about 1-second intervals on our last raid there and he eventually roamed back nevertheless. He should not stand still for long, but 3-5 seconds or so seems about right after the last hail. While moving, he should *definitely* stop when hailed from within Hail range.
5) Pegasus Isle: All griffins and pegasi were roamers(!) on live. That was what made this isle a little tricky with adds. They are pretty much if not completely stationary on p1999, trivializing this island.Does someone have a level 80+ rogue or something I could go look at some of this on eqlive? PM me. Or, someone able to research with fraps and make pathing maps.

[Handull]

1) I haven't ever seen anything about procing an OT hammer in sky, so can't comment on that.

2) I've heard of a bunch of people complain its hard to click the pads, but I've never once had an issue with it. Generally when someone can't click the pad I assume they are just ignorant to how keys work and expect to have a key ring or something.

3) this is tough...
http://www.angelfire.com/freak/eqjonze/guides/planes/planeofsky1/posguide.pdf
march, 2001, says PoS spawns from the last wandering azz to die...however it also says you get 24 key pieces here, which includes 4 from PoS, so that leaves 20 keys from the trash, which implies that there are likely 10 trash mobs dropping 2 keys each (there is no mention here of how many trash mobs there are). it also says that corpses rot in 6 minutes, when on p99 sub 55 corpses rot in 7min 40sec.
http://web.archive.org/web/20011029115322/http://members.cohesive.net/~rtaylor/EQ/skyguide/
nov, 2001, says PoS spawns from the only static azz who hits for 220 max, also says PoS spawns away from the port up, not where you kill the PH. no mention of number of keys
http://www.angelfire.com/freak/eqjonze/guides/planes/planeofsky1/planeofsky1.htm
late 2001 (see below), says there are 8 pathing azz and 1 static, each dropping 1-3 key pieces
http://mysite.verizon.net/drexxell/eq/planeofsky.html
2006, but a very complete guide. says 1-3 keys from the 9 trash, doesn't mention any being static. says that boss spawns from the last one killed, but that it used to be (or he heard rumors) that it was from the ph.

my best guess here is it went like this: started out as the static azz was the ph, but many people didn't notice one was static and it was easy to lose the PH in the shit show that was trying to cc that island. eventually someone complained about it, and in the carebare WoW style attitude, they changed it so that it wasn't possible to spawn sirran or the boss with azzeracks in camp still and wipe yourself, forcing the last azz to spawn the boss. i can't explain why the keys would go from 3 to 1-3, but maybe 1-3 was just classic and it was misreported in the one guide.

4) Guides I've read do talk about hailing to pull out gorg, but on p99 if he spam hails he just walks away.

5) never heard of this, but even if they path I can't imagine things ever getting out of control, the island is so big to start with. looking at it again drexxel does list them as roving mobs (2006). the march 2001 guide implies the griff/peg island is too small to fight on (even though its the largest island in the zone) which supports what you say, but this guide also makes no sense with the number of keys you get from that island (says 24 total, including 4 from the boss, and there are 6 trash mobs plus their splits (4 splits per trash) to kill, it claims each trash/split drops keys, but the math just isn't there). but the nov 2001 guide says to just go up and pull singles, easy as pie.


all in all, sky is a really hard zone to get info on. there were definately changes to the zone over time, and there is also just a lot of bad data out there. people generally didn't acurately time stuff like sirran's depop time, etc. I have found a few good guides, but they all disagree on trivial and non trivial points. the guides i posted are the best i've ever seen, and i've read them each a few times. there is so much from each guide that can be proven to be 100% dead wrong, that it makes it really hard to be confident in the unknown things the guides claim to be true.

edit: looks like the undated guide is late 2001 as per http://web.archive.org/web/20011217151450/http://www.geocities.com/lordhong/sky.htm

[Num1RecommendedByDentists]

can confirm clicking teleport pads is a fucking nightmare on this server every now and then

[khanable]

clicking the pads works best for me if I mouse wheel out, rotate the camera to be looking down at me, and then click my screen between the left top corner and my toon

100% of the time it works 80% of the time

[heartbrand]

On live the aggro range of everything is far larger. Here you can sit on the hill waiting for KoS to spawn, on live being anywhere near the hill gets you a DT. Same with spiroc lord.

[Nizzarr]

So make all 6 griffins/pegasus be roamers on 4.

Make KoS aggro range similar to Spiroc lord aggro range.

Hailing on this server do not keep mobs in place. You could hail sirran on live and he would stay up for another 15 minute. Clearly not the case here.

[DoucLangur]

You could hail sirran on live and he would stay up for another 15 minute. Clearly not the case here.

I didn't mean that with Gorgalosk. I meant like any quest mob, hailing would stop him from roaming back to spawnpoint for long enough that by spamming Hails, you could stop him dead in his tracks. And if you lost him, it was possible to give chase and stop him again by re-hailing.

Something more to add (and thank you for the research, guys) - again from a Velious era perspective, assuming this was not changed:
Aggro range on spiroc isle is FAR to high, confirmed: You had to pull here to get any aggro, or walk right into the mobs, almost. I don't know the detailed range but you could definitely get within 1/2 a casting range without aggro. The *assist* range was huge. Pulling the clockwise first vanquisher from portin would often get you a 2nd vanquisher, all four guards and the spiroc guardian, depending on luck / positions.

One really nasty thing that I just experienced: Knockback by spirocs. There was only one mob in PoSky that knocked back in PoSky around Velious Era, and that was Gwan for the monk epic. He once knocked me from windmill directly to Gorgalosk isle. Introducing a knockback that kicks people out of PoSky losing ALL progress on their sky keys is just not helping, apart from not being classic for all that I know.

One thing that *is* classic but could do with a change: Keeper of Souls spawntime. It's just too long. It was like that in classic, but right now it doesn't accomplish anything but waste people's time idling. I doubt anyone actually needs all this time to clean the isle.

[heartbrand]

Keeper spawn time is atrocious its like 30 on live currently

[DoucLangur]

nm

[Nirgon]

I've also noticed the hail issue.

You could spam hail Hasten Bootstrutter and he wouldn't even budge on live.

Here, he breaks away. NPCs should reset their "resume path after x seconds" method each time they are hailed.

[Handull]

I haven't gotten jboots in a while, but I remember being able to Hail hasten to run through the quest. He would run away quickly, but he would still stop. Similarly I know that Rebo (rivervale) will stop when you hail him, though he only stays put for a second or two. When turning in jumjum I usually hail between adding 1 more jumjum to the trade, just to be safe he doesn't run off on me. Gorg on the other hand does not stop, not even for a second.

Right now there are 3 (maybe 4?) mobs that can knock you off of sky. Gwan, the Named Eyeball on Gorg island (aoe grav flux, byebye 3/4 of your raid), at least one of the Spirocs (never bothered to figure out which one), and possibly the casters on island 7. I can't say I've seen the drakes on 7 use knockback, but I've only cleared them a handful of times and they are mostly wizards, so I wouldn't be shocked. Half the issue with spirocs casting knockback is probably due to all mobs on p99 casting spells way higher level than they should be. Spirocs in sky cast Breath of Ro (lvl 52 spell) and there are certain mobs around casting velious+ spells (unless this part was fixed).

Looking at the guides I posted, the March 2001 guide says that going to island 2 (azerack island) "What makes this island difficult is that it’s aggro. When you first enter it, you will almost certainly be attacked. You can, however, reduce the risk of this happening. Shrink and invis everybody before going up. This will lower your aggro considerably." I interpret this as meaning that usually someone will port up and move the wrong way, or be level 46 and have a large agro range and agro something, and then bam, wiped raid. On p99 however, at least high levels I know don't get agro from the port up spot (but I'm not sure about lvl 46 toons). Now since island 5 on p99 has no where to hide, you would think this guide would be even more cautious about the port to island 5... "Be careful when you enter spiroc island. You’re not going to get jumped when you zone in but nobody should move when they get in until everybody has zoned in, looked around, and gotten their bearings. If you move too far, you’ll aggro a wandering spiroc." Seems to support the theory of low agro, high assist on spirocs.

From Nov, 2001 "A very odd behavior here is that the spirocs seem to have VERY low agro ranger here (almost to the point of not being agro), but VERY LARGE call for help (assist) ranger."

These guides also mention spirocs casting "Cast lightning, unresistable AoE; Cast Blind and Root". I can't say I've ever been rooted by spirocs (and i've pulled them a lot on p99) and they most certainly have never AoE'd. They do however like to cast lvl 52 druid Breath of Ro, and at least one does like to cast a knockback spell once in a while on p99.

[Nirgon]

Not all mobs should stop when hailed

None should be casting a spell higher than lvl 49 iirc

Sky island 2 Azeracks should definitely be all up on you when you pop in.

[Handull]

From Drexxel's 2006 guide about island 2
"DANGER! Nine aggressive mobs are on the island, but no longer aggro the point where you arrive [Confirmed 5/28/2006]. They don't see through invisibility though, so rushing through this island if you're already keyed will be easy. The Boss mob is not up though, so if you're farming keys, you'll need to spawn him by (*strike-through*killing his placeholder*strike-through*). clearing the islands.[Confirmed 5/28/2006] "

So changes that I think we can confirm from this thread:
-Drastically decrease spirocs agro range, but keep the current assist range.
-Increase Azeracks agro range slightly to cover the whole island.
-Possibly make the azerack ph static, but this might need more research
-Fix spell casting from npcs (universal bug) but specifically for spirocs
-Make Gorg stop briefly when hailed


OT Hammers and island 4 pathing need more research, imo

[Handull]

Also, should the Sirran from bee boss respond to Hails, or should he only respond to key loot turn ins and 'citanuL eht narriS, liaH'?

Currently on p99 he responds to Hails.

[Handull]

bump

[Handull]

^