Luclin without Luclin

[Raev]

What would happen if this server emulated the timeline of a person who never bought the Shadows of Luclin expansion? They would never be able to travel to Luclin zones, roll a Beastlord, or earn AAs. But they would see:

Rebalancing of several items including the 'real' Blade of Carnage and Ranger-usable Crown of Narandi
Spell fixes including no more dex+focus, cheaper Rapture, AE immune Wizard pets, and pets using player level/resistances
Full FT stacking
No-aggro Eye of Zomm
Blessed Coldain Prayer Shawl
Ring of Vulak
DoT stacking
Focus Effects
Ancient Spells
Late Luclin AC system (289 hardcap should be in effect all through P99's timeline)


What's your opinion? Would you consider this interpretation 'classic' ? Do you think these changes improve game balance?

[Danth]

You left out the great Monk mitigation nerf.

Danth

[aaezil]

Non aggro eye rest is pretty meh

[Raev]

The 'Late Luclin AC system' is the Monk mitigation nerf. In true Classic, Monks could obtain 289 item AC (just like everyone else) but had a higher avoidance rate due to Block, making them roughly as durable as Knights. Verant, as per usual, failed to understand their own mechanics and way overdid it, then partially rolled back the nerf midway through Planes of Power.

[DinoTriz2]

The Phoenix DAOC server kept everything as classic as possible, only adding minor quality of life features. It has done wonders.

That being said....

NOT CLASSIC.

[Danth]

Realistically I'm fine with completing the existing/planned timeline and calling P99 finished. Game's fine for what it is.

If changes were to be made, I'd prefer effective changes that attack the problems directly rather than slavishly repeating the same mistakes the ever-inept Sony made the first time 'round. P99 appears to use a more or less custom AC system, so there's precedent.

Danth

[DinoTriz2]

I do think another classic server with common sense quality of life changes would be cool.

Like make Wizards a viable class, etc.

[Raev]

@Danth Of course there is nothing wrong with a hard cut the day before Luclin release; the question is whether this would be better. It's also worth noting that the explicit mission of this Project is the slavish replication of Verant's complete decision timeline.

@Dino the 'classic client' timeline would substantially boost Wizards: +10% damage from Improved Damage III, -5% mana from Mana Preservation III, +3 FT from the Blessed Coldain Prayer Shawl, Xuzl becomes extremely useful, and a 5:1 Ancient nuke. I don't know whether that makes them viable in your mind or not.

[I Felt Nostalgic]

I do think another classic server with common sense quality of life changes would be cool.

You mean like a SHARED BANK?! How this is not a thing on this server is mind boggling. If you're going to go against the original vision of the server you might as well add a shared bank for player convenience as well.

[mumpz]

Realistically I'm fine with completing the existing/planned timeline and calling P99 finished. Game's fine for what it is.


This. No triple attack please, since that is pre-luclin patch.

[Indecisive]

You mean like a SHARED BANK?! How this is not a thing on this server is mind boggling. If you're going to go against the original vision of the server you might as well add a shared bank for player convenience as well.

If I could have just one non-classic QoL feature on this server, that's it.

[Chapelle]

Male forsaken revs drop earth staff.

[PieOats]

although I'm not for OP's not classic proposition, I do applaud the semblance of original thoUght here in this most recent attempt to introduce NOT CLASSICishness here. Good job, pal 👍

[Wonkie]

you're describing your guild on takp OP

[Champion_Standing]

Rating 1 star cuz AAs and the Bazaar were the only good things about Luclin.

[branamil]

The server is already off the rails with the 25 mob limit and rooted dragons and knight defense bugs. Might as well go a little more unclassic with some quality of life improvements

[Ennewi]

The server is already off the rails with the 25 mob limit and rooted dragons and knight defense bugs. Might as well go a little more unclassic with some quality of life improvements

04-10-2019, 11:30 PM This is a display issue only. Your skills are still levelling up and staying there. AC Will also not be reported correctly on the client if it thinks your defense skill is capped at a lower point than the servers.

[Ennewi]

As for custom content and the like (which, if memory serves, the staff has hinted at), I would rather not have quality of life features from later expansions, but instead something home-brewed that most everyone would be in agreement with via polls or feedback through a test server...features that better complement the original vision. Also, it's not as though McQuaid and company don't respond to emails; it's a safe bet they'd be willing to field a question or two about this sort of thing. What would you have tweaked? Where should the game have gone after Velious? And so on.

[Kirdan]

Don't forget innate wizard spell crits

[Pint]

We're already too strong for this norrath

[Tethler]

Disable recharges and MQs. Make wizards viable. Add shared bank.

That's all p99 really needs.

[Jimjam]

If you're adding shared bank, you may as well throw in the rest of LoY too!

[Swish2]

https://i.imgur.com/1gBWIug.gif

[FatherSioux]

Disable recharges and MQs.

[kotton05]

Raev is cringe af

[jolanar]

If you've done everything p99 has to offer just stop playing instead of trying to get the staff to add new stuff that isn't classic.

[Thomacles]

This server stopped being classic long ago.

People here sooooo pick and choose their arguments without the slightest regard to the other side of the coin.

"BUT THAT'S NOT CLASSIC!!"....the rallying cry of the insecure and unimaginative.

Server agreements, recharging items, game mechanic exploits, FTE, etc etc.....

NONE of that was classic.

So I will address the elephant in the room. People don't want Luclin, because it will reset the top dogs on the current server and open them up to be dethroned. Its all about balance of power. This server has been locked in a stagnation for YEARS. It's time to move on. The people "who want to experience the classic feel of EQ" ran it's course years ago. Those who wanted to experience it, already have. P99 is not going to have a sudden influx of players that "wanna relive nostalgia" Those players that have the slightest interest in doing so have already did it and stayed, or tried it and left.

The real question is do you really wanna live in a finite, capped, non-dynamic world, or would you rather move on to bigger and better things?

[fadetree]

This server stopped being classic long ago.

People here sooooo pick and choose their arguments without the slightest regard to the other side of the coin.

"BUT THAT'S NOT CLASSIC!!"....the rallying cry of the insecure and unimaginative.

Server agreements, recharging items, game mechanic exploits, FTE, etc etc.....

NONE of that was classic.

So I will address the elephant in the room. People don't want Luclin, because it will reset the top dogs on the current server and open them up to be dethroned. Its all about balance of power. This server has been locked in a stagnation for YEARS. It's time to move on. The people "who want to experience the classic feel of EQ" ran it's course years ago. Those who wanted to experience it, already have. P99 is not going to have a sudden influx of players that "wanna relive nostalgia" Those players that have the slightest interest in doing so have already did it and stayed, or tried it and left.

The real question is do you really wanna live in a finite, capped, non-dynamic world, or would you rather move on to bigger and better things?

You do realize that the express and only purpose of this server is to preserve the classical EQ environment up through Velious, right? It doesn't matter what guilds are on top or what people think would be fun or useful.

[Danth]

bigger and better things

Luclin

Your notion of "better" is not the same as my own. I'm here on P1999 because I regard the post-Velious expansions as garbage. Adding Luclin (and, inevitably, Planes since nobody would want to stop at Luclin) would simply make P99 garbage, too, and drive me away just the same as that rubbish drove me out of the original game. TAKP (and 2002) are already out there for folks who like that period.

Note that Raev was not suggesting adding Luclin, just a few choice mechanics and changes from the 2002 period. His suggestion didn't necessarily garner my support either, but it was reasonable enough.

Danth

[Hrothgar]

We're already too strong for this norrath


Tanks are literally falling asleep at the keyboard 2-manning mobs with upwards of 32k hp. The baby has outgrown the crib.

[bigjeff100]

+1 Ending MQ's..
+1 Shared Bank
+1 Kitties came from Odus, not the Moon.

[Amyas]

I loved Luclin, last lv 60 eq, I miss AA exping after raids and ranger being the sheeeeet.

[Darkmoogle]

I couldn't find anything current, but is it still set in stone that Luclin will never be added to P99?

[kinuven]

+1 AA so Bards can have double attack!!

[fadetree]

I couldn't find anything current, but is it still set in stone that Luclin will never be added to P99?

Yes.

[Keza]

How would it being nonclassic be considered as classic just because it's related to classic/Kunark/Velious? I mean, not that Kunark/Velious are actually classic, but in this server's interpretation.

Not that it matters since all the content is super trivialized by ench/shm anyway I guess. I'd much rather see Luclin itself than pointless changes made to further trivialize farmed content.

[Dolalin]

I think Vulak Ring would be a great addition to this server, and wouldn't be too non-classic.

Most "classic" EMUs deviate a little bit from vanilla at the endgame anyway.

[elwing]

I demand human usable greenmist and veksar!

[bigjeff100]

I couldn't find anything current, but is it still set in stone that Luclin will never be added to P99?

Luclin in general will always be a no.. This server stops at Velious.. But there has been talks of added custom content when the project is complete..

And the closer we get to the "green" server being a real possibility, the closer we get to custom content possibly being added here.. So who knows what could happen in the future!!!

[Chapelle]

Luclin in general will always be a no.. This server stops at Velious.. But there has been talks of added custom content when the project is complete..

And the closer we get to the "green" server being a real possibility, the closer we get to custom content possibly being added here.. So who knows what could happen in the future!!!

What does "complete" mean and what is missing from hitting that milestone?

[bigjeff100]

What does "complete" mean and what is missing from hitting that milestone?

Well for 1- The Chardok 2.0 patch hasn't been fully released.. They released a big portion of it recently as you are aware. But it wasn't the full patch.

But 2.0 is supposed to be the last big patch. After that, i assume it's bug fixes. Possible custom content some day.. Who knows? But leadership definitely has not ruled out the custom content on this server once it's complete..

[Sonark]

Adding in Kunark era stuff that wasn't implemented until years later would be a good start once the main stuff is done.

There's loads of quests that were added just as of 1-2 years ago on Live, and the Iksar epics for the Iksar playable classes, and not just Greenmist.

And yeah, why not Veksar? That's another should-have-been-in-when-Kunark-came-out thing.

Doesn't get more Classic than intentions.

[Danth]

And yeah, why not Veksar? That's another should-have-been-in-when-Kunark-came-out thing.

What's the tuning and itemization of Veksar like? How much of the zone could be copy-pasted onto P99, versus how much of it would have to be modified to fit the existing era?

Danth

[loramin]

What's the tuning and itemization of Veksar like? How much of the zone could be copy-pasted onto P99, versus how much of it would have to be modified to fit the existing era?

Danth

Awhile back a dev (I forget who) stated that they were unlikely to re-create live zones ever again after classic. Apparently it is significantly more work to do that than to just create their own custom zone, so if we get a Veksar here it will almost be guaranteed to be a completely different version than the one on live.

[Danth]

Since Raev deserves more than a couple lines in reply, here's some thoughts on the specific items he lists:

What's your opinion?

Rebalancing of several items including the 'real' Blade of Carnage and Ranger-usable Crown of Narandi
---This strikes me as kind of fluff; existing itemization already allows for the trivialization of content.

Spell fixes including no more dex+focus, cheaper Rapture, AE immune Wizard pets, and pets using player level/resistances
---Case-by-case. I like dex/focus stacking, it helps bridge the cap between lower-end and high-end equipment. Rapture cheaper...Enchanters aren't exactly needing buffs. Wizard pets were fluff, but kinda harms the classic feel of the class. same effect could be baked in without the visible pet, if you want to re-tune the Wizard. Pets using player resistances seems moot given the general way resistances work on P99.

Full FT stacking
---See above note with respect to itemization. Fluff.

No-aggro Eye of Zomm
---Not enough. Want to fix trivialization of pulling, probably need to disable beads/probes entirely.

Blessed Coldain Prayer Shawl
---More itemization, hence fluff.

Ring of Vulak
- --Maybe it was just the folks I hung around with, but back in the day pretty well everyone I knew despised that event after doing it once.

DoT stacking
---Positive change that benefits DOT-specific classes and harms nobody.

Focus Effects
---Spell scaling is needed, but I didn't like that solution to it. Should've been a statistic akin to warcraft-style spell power. Placing the entirety of spell scaling on individual pieces of equipment tended to limit overall itemization too much.

Ancient Spells
---I don't remember those. What are they?

Late Luclin AC system (289 hardcap should be in effect all through P99's timeline)
--P99 already seems to use something of a custom AC system, so this might be moot. In general the Luclin-era AC tuning changes were an improvement over that of Kunark/Velious.

Basically Raev, aside from a couple exceptions I don't oppose most of the balance-related stuff so much as I don't think it goes far enough. (the itemization-related stuff, as noted, is fluff to me since existing itemization is already plenty strong enough for existing content). The way I see it, if we want to improve the game--then improve it, instead of limiting ourselves to half-measures. I'm not a classic purist in that sense, so much as a proponent of doing a job right. None of the game's most serious weaknesses are sufficiently addressed by that list. No defense-oriented discipline for hybrid tanks (IMO give 'em evasive at 60 on a 72 min cooldown), insufficient tuning for Wizards and to a lesser degree Druids, Charm remains grossly overpowered, Warrior snap aggro still sucks (make melee stuns generate high hate IMO), and so forth. What's your own thought on that assessment?

Danth

[Danth]

Awhile back a dev (I forget who) stated that they were unlikely to re-create live zones ever again after classic. Apparently it is significantly more work to do that than to just create their own custom zone, so if we get a Veksar here it will almost be guaranteed to be a completely different version than the one on live.

Don't think I ever saw the zone from Live. Do the textures/etc match the Kunark-era? One of the problems with, say, Gunthak/etc was the jarring change to the polygon counts and texture detail going from Stonebrunt to the expansion zones. Jaggedpine had the same problem, it looked severely out of place next to blackburrow/qeynos hills.

Danth

[Raev]

None of the game's most serious weaknesses are sufficiently addressed by that list. No defense-oriented discipline for hybrid tanks (IMO give 'em evasive at 60 on a 72 min cooldown), insufficient tuning for Wizards and to a lesser degree Druids, Charm remains grossly overpowered, Warrior snap aggro still sucks (make melee stuns generate high hate IMO), and so forth. What's your own thought on that assessment?

There is nothing wrong with the current balance between the various melee classes, and I am including the hybrids here, at least once Haynar fixes various mechanics (spell hate, FD linger timers, push to interrupt) and the rest of the melee balance patch. The problem before was that all bosses were zone pulled, which eliminates the Knight's 'trash' tank role. When we crawled TOV during Velious Beta we used Naxi and Feign and co all the time. Sure, you CAN do it with Warriors, but Knights are far superior even with the BoC. People will remember.

The late Luclin AC system is a sorely needed nerf to P99's overpowered melee relative to both casters and NPCs. For example, even if we ignore the Monk overnerf and put them on the Beastlord table (350 cap + 8% overcap if memory serves) from the beginning, a fully NTOV geared monk would be roughly equivalent to a Warrior with 1050 displayed AC. That is a yuge drop. Meanwhie additional FT and focus items substantially buff casters and make their itemization relevant again. I think Wizards and Druids are underrated here: they are bad, but nowhere near their reputations especially if NPCs ran like they should, making snare critical and evac more useful. Wizards will still be raid focused, but <shrug>

NPCs not aggroing eyes is a gigantic monk nerf and makes FD splitting risky and interesting again.

I suspect your guild hated the Ring of Vulak because it was way to long and difficult relative to its loot in Luclin. But for a Velious locked server it's perfect, especially since Vulak would be the only way to get Ancient spells including Blessing of Aegolism, Ferine Avatar, etc. Meanwhile the Blessed Coldain Shawl opens up a lot of content by making tradeskills more useful. Admittedly rather dumb and boring content though!

TLDR: I think Verant actually did a pretty reasonable job of fixing the biggest balance problems of late Velious during Luclin. I'm sure we could do it better 15 years after the fact, but following their 'classic' timeline will maintain the feel of the server more than custom mechanics. I doubt any of this happens, as somehow it doesn't feel very Nilbog, but I do think it would improve experience of the individual players and I enjoy this kind of exercise, even if it's pointless!

[Yian]

Just chiming in on the non-classic wiz fixes idea. If a fix were made for wizards I think it should just be to increase their natural mana regeneration by some amount. Make it slightly higher than other classes, that way they are mostly limited in damage potential by their ability to manage agro. Which I think makes sense from a class standpoint. Obviously this would require some experimentation as to what works at what levels but I think it is the easiest way to make Wizards a more viable class to play. Maybe an extra 1 point of mana regen every 10 levels or something? Its been 16 years since I played my wizard, I remember being pretty stoked for my first flowing thought 1 item only to find it didn't really seem do much at all :p

[branamil]

On live almost all sebilis groups sought out a druid or wiz to evac or port to EJ once they were done. I think the OT hammer being so common really hurts druids and wizzes main purpose. Oddly there was usually a "master looter" who was in charge of distributing all PP and gems looted that night. I recall almost every seb group ended in EJ after porting out and passing out loot.

[loramin]

On live almost all sebilis groups sought out a druid or wiz to evac or port to EJ once they were done. I think the OT hammer being so common really hurts druids and wizzes main purpose. Oddly there was usually a "master looter" who was in charge of distributing all PP and gems looted that night. I recall almost every seb group ended in EJ after porting out and passing out loot.

Maybe not "almost all", but I remember this being common too.

If custom content ever decides to trade "classic mechanics" for "classic environment", simply nerfing puppet strings to not work for OT Hammers would have a huge "classic environment" payoff for a tiny break in "classic mechanics" ...

.. or at least it would on Green :( But custom content will be a Blue server thing, and even if the entire OT hammer quest was removed entirely at this point, so many people have OT hammers that it's impossible to put the cat back in the bag.

And just flat out breaking all OT Hammers feels a bit too much of a "classic mechanics" breakage for even custom content.

[Yian]

I think the OT hammer being so common really hurts druids and wizzes main purpose.

As a retired wizard this comment offends me. A wizards purpose is pure unadulterated annihilation.

[polishanarchy]

Rebalancing of several items including the 'real' Blade of Carnage and Ranger-usable Crown of Narandi



I can dream. Been holding onto this old post (https://www.project1999.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1789293&postcount=64) for a while, though it's probably wishful thinking...