AC issues are starting to be really problematic.
 

So, I've been doing a lot of Velious content... Kael, Plane of Growth, Temple of Veeshan, etc. For the most part, things felt about right. Accurate max hit, accurate HP, accurate abilities (for the most part). However, everything still felt really off.

I think the problem here is the way P99 handles AC.

Let's take Eashen of the Sky for example. For any experienced guild, Eashen should serve as little less than a speed bump on entry into NToV. But on beta, Eashen is a badass machine of destruction. He doesn't flurry or rampage anymore, and his max hit seems right. So what's wrong?

After talking to some people, it appears that the issues revolve around AC. Eashen is hitting at the top spectrum of his damage range too often, and players are very very rarely ever hitting for their own max damage. This means mobs are taking much longer to kill, and are doing much more damage than they should.

So... getting the correct abilities and such on mobs is a relatively easy thing, but getting AC in order to truly make the Velious content feel more classic is going to be a more difficult obstacle, I imagine.

Keep in mind that you are in Kunark gear and likely trading major stats for AC etc. Tanks can get much higher max HP, resists and AC simultaneously in Velious.

Eashen quickly became a speed-bump, but he was not necessarily that easy at first.

He was legit killed with 33 people in Kunark gear, 3? clerics and the tank lived most of the fight. He likely could have been killed with less, and will definitely be killed with less once people gear up, which seems about right.

Well, pretty much every warrior already gears for maximum HP anyways.

There's lots of evidence floating around showing that AC gear does little to nothing to help you survive.

Even so, once of the very top tier tanks on the server probably shouldn't be getting hit for max nearly every round.

You leave out the fact that we had several attempts and the fight that we killed Eashen was about as close to another wipe as you could get.

Also doesn't address the issue with melee dps being very poor vs. Velious mobs.

It will most likely never be absolutely 100% accurate. PC's here also do far more damage than they did on live in this era.

Eashen was *very* slightly tweaked down after that kill, but Velious bosses are not going to be a cakewalk.

It will most likely takes weeks if not months to gear up for Aaryonar and 40-60 people to get the first kill, similar to live.

And that statement, pretty much made me ignore the rest of your post.

I will run some parses at the high end, checking if AC is working anyways. I may not finish for a few days, as I tend to run 3 hour parses.

But if you have warriors maximizing HP, then complaining that AC is broke, then you need to find some different warriors.

H

Don't put the cart before the horse. P1999 didn't open yesterday; those high-end Warriors know what they're doing. They've been playing for years and have spent more time tanking high-end content than anyone else on here. They gear for HP because years of experience has repeatedly demonstrated AC to have minimal, if any, benefit.

AC doesn't simply have to work, but it has to work at value ranges people can realistically obtain. Tuning around best-in-slot characters, if you aren't careful, can backfire and result in everything being over-tuned. BIS Warriors in Velious probably hit 1600-1700 AC on the character sheet; normal tanks are going to be running around with more like 1200-1300 displayed AC. That lower value range is the one that actually has to work the great majority of the time, or else players will simply deem it broken and ignore it like they do presently. Exceptions to this are specific high-end monsters like Avatar of War, which had such high attack values that NO amount of AC in velious-era gear would effectively mitigate its damage.

I've always read that the classic era, at least into Velious, plate classes had a 289 AC hard cap, possibly changing to a softcap with severely diminished returns after one of the Velious-era combat revamps (or possibly not, this was always less clear). That value can be reached in Kunark gear. My Shadow Knight is in strictly low-mid tier armor and has 274 worn AC. In serious zones that amount of AC does virtually nothing for him and he sucks up back to back to back max hits as though he's in banded. That experience is the same as all the other tanks on the server, including those who have taken (and posted) combat parses, and represents why most of them don't worry about their AC too much.

Now, if you've done a better job of programming Velious compared to previous content such that AC will actually provide a useful benefit there, great! Make sure the players know it and can take the steps to focus on that stat again.

Danth

Sorry this free server doesn't live up to your standards.

KK. Thx. Thx.

Buh bye.

"Free" has no bearing on whether something is or isn't tuned ideally. If you want feedback and discussion on mechanics that may be a little off, I'm happy to post my observations. If you just want to pick a fight, I'm not interested.

Danth

What I was saying is that for the most part, in Velious, you do not have to choose. There will be large gains in max HP, AC, and resists simultaneously. All of these will work towards making encounters easier.

There will also be improvements in raid positioning, strategy and fine tuning that will make a big difference. I'm pretty sure Eashen will be killable with 20 a year into Velious.

Evasive disc also seems FAR stronger than I remember during this era. I watched a red wurm miss a Kunark geared warrior 30/35 times last night, which is not uncommon from the logs I've been getting.

I did a test with Sakuragi where he actually took more damage over several hundred hits with a 40AC shield than without. The min/max/interval hits were exactly the same. If you read Kahvok's post, 40 item AC should be something like 10% less damage. http://www.project1999.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=118766. That being said, Byrjun, it seems that AC wasn't quite as effective against raid targets with very high attack values: http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum...hread.php?t=13

Also I don't understand these 'you have to gear up for Velious' comments. We know from Kahvok's post that AC was hard capped at 289. As Danth said, that was achievable in Kunark if you really wanted to. So basically Velious means that Warriors will go from 250 item AC/5800 HP (with Velious buffs) to 289 item AC/6300 HP. 40 AC/500HP will certainly make a difference, but you can easily compensate for that with another cleric as long as you aren't getting one-rounded.

Also I want to add that no one here is flaming. It's a free server and we appreciate the work you do. Isn't giving feedback the whole purpose of the beta?