Open Letter to Nilbog & Co: Raid Item Nerfs

[Yuuvy The Destroyer]

Lotta that s stuff wasn't widely known back in the day. If you are in a top guild you're not likely to give away the secrets that let your guild do what you do.

To lurk, I was in overlord channel, if you remember that one.

Also remember something from maybe the shamans crucible about initial aggro being capped. Example: shaman pulls with slow and it generates less aggro than it normally would.

[lurk]

Dispell is the lowest agro spell you could possibly cast. Even if a belly caster resisted your charm, you cannot claim it produces zero agro. I seriously doubt there was classic code that made belly caster resists different than regular. Even then, there is still some agro.

[Daldaen]

Originally Posted by Yuuvy The Destroyer [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Lotta that s stuff wasn't widely known back in the day. If you are in a top guild you're not likely to give away the secrets that let your guild do what you do.

To lurk, I was in overlord channel, if you remember that one.

Also remember something from maybe the shamans crucible about initial aggro being capped. Example: shaman pulls with slow and it generates less aggro than it normally would.

There also eventually became a cap on debuff aggro. IE all rebuffs generated only 400 Hate at cap. So a slow and flame lick were equivalent.

[Daldaen]

Originally Posted by lurk [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Dispell is the lowest agro spell you could possibly cast. Even if a belly caster resisted your charm, you cannot claim it produces zero agro. I seriously doubt there was classic code that made belly caster resists different than regular. Even then, there is still some agro.

Think about it from a code standpoint, the order in which the code performs calculation.. I'll give a classic example that I can prove.

http://www.project1999.com/forums/sh...t=Bladestopper

When using a spell, the game begins the cast, then checks your inventory if you have sufficient reagents, then at the end of the cast either proceeds with the cast and then eats the reagent OR cancels the cast due to lack of reagent.

What happens with instant clickies: the spell instantly casts, so there isn't a casting phase to check for a reagent. So no reagent is consumed.

----

What I'm suggesting is similar for Belly Casters. The "Add X Hate" portion of the code due to spell casts occurs before the resist check (regular) is performed. We know this because All spells generate the same amount of aggro regardless of whether they land or are resisted. Snares that get resisted still pulls mobs out of trains. Likewise Concussions on immune mobs still reduce your aggro. The aggro total of the spell is frontloaded and occurs before the resist check.

But what I'm saying, is it is *possible* that the way the game checks against Belly Casters, that is the first check in the order the code checks for resist. And it occurs BEFORE the "Add X Hate" portion of the code. So because the code says nothing occurs after the Belly Caster check fails, it may not add any aggro because the code says that chain of calculation is done before it gets to the add aggro phase.

[Yuuvy The Destroyer]

Originally Posted by Daldaen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There also eventually became a cap on debuff aggro. IE all rebuffs generated only 400 Hate at cap. So a slow and flame lick were equivalent.

I believe you. But it's hard to say when this took place. Many changes were not in patch notes.

[Daldaen]

I'm pretty sure that hardcap was a post Luclin thing. See how favored Trident and Willsapper were in Velious. I recall some Furor posts about this. Tash sticks or some such??

[Raev]

If you accept bullshit psychological models, OP, Kubler/Ross suggests you are in stage 3:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

You need to skip to stage 5 and realize that raiding on this server WILL ALWAYS SUCK. The staff here want a competitive server, i.e. they enjoy watching players get up at 5AM on New Years for a server reset. Since the content is not challenging and never will be, Project 1999 raiding will always be about poopsocking. It has been this way for the entire life of the server because that is the way the staff want it.

So either a) accept that it sucks and play here anyway, b) move to another server like Phinigel/TAKP/P2002, or c) go outside.

[pasi]

Originally Posted by Daldaen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm pretty sure that hardcap was a post Luclin thing. See how favored Trident and Willsapper were in Velious. I recall some Furor posts about this. Tash sticks or some such??

You are correct with this.

Too lazy to re-type this, so gonna be a boss and quote from 2013

I don't want to derail this thread, but procs that stun and debuff should not be capped in this era. That means the hate given by these effects 'should' be a function of the NPC's HP rather than the 400 hate cap on non-casted stuns.

I'm not sure if stun and debuff procs are modifier based on the HP of mobs over here, but if the server is using flat values for these spells, it would explain why melee hate seems relatively weak compared to procs in an exp setting. In a raid setting, procs should be WAY more aggro than melee hate.

Threat per debuff has always been modified to some degree by the NPC's HP. This modifier still exists on EQ, but it was normalized later on (relative to this server). To my knowledge, debuffs should have a very massive multiplier with Velious code.

In addition to this, caps were put on weapon proc components. These same stun proc component would cap at 400 hate; whereas if that same stun were casted, it would generate 1200 hate.

If anybody cares about the math: http://giline.versus.jp/shiden/stun_e.htm

Against Captain Stonefist (lv65), Energy Sap increases Hate by range 398.00 to 407.00.

To my knowledge, there's almost no way of assigning a specific hate value for spells pre-Luclin. So, it's a bit touch-and-go with pre-Luclin code. My guess is that the P1999 devs might be using the values from data after the addition of the weapon proc cap. None of the research threads (i.e. the one I posted or Braels melee one) had a constant value to compare to until SKs received the Terror line of spells.

Edit: Hi Lor!

Actually, come to look: These changes were February of 2001. Should be applied for Velious currently. Above post does not apply!

[Rygar]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you accept bullshit psychological models, OP, Kubler/Ross suggests you are in stage 3:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

You need to skip to stage 5 and realize that raiding on this server WILL ALWAYS SUCK. The staff here want a competitive server, i.e. they enjoy watching players get up at 5AM on New Years for a server reset. Since the content is not challenging and never will be, Project 1999 raiding will always be about poopsocking. It has been this way for the entire life of the server because that is the way the staff want it.

So either a) accept that it sucks and play here anyway, b) move to another server like Phinigel/TAKP/P2002, or c) go outside.

Think it sounds like you are in Stage 2? I don't think the staff gets some kind of pleasure out of people poopsocking, they just created a classic server and people play / raid on it as they will.

I only raid about once a month due to RL, I don't poopsock, track, or pre-park. I consider myself a 'raider of opportunity'. What I was suggesting wasn't meant to fix any kind of poopsocking, just remove some of the easy-mode stuff and make things more like they were before aggro management revolved around a few key items.

[Ikon]

Originally Posted by Rygar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Think it sounds like you are in Stage 2? I don't think the staff gets some kind of pleasure out of people poopsocking, they just created a classic server and people play / raid on it as they will.

I only raid about once a month due to RL, I don't poopsock, track, or pre-park. I consider myself a 'raider of opportunity'. What I was suggesting wasn't meant to fix any kind of poopsocking, just remove some of the easy-mode stuff and make things more like they were before aggro management revolved around a few key items.

Also they are still making signficant changes to the game - see the lazy aggro code which Haynar has said should be finished this week. Not being able to easily train to zonelines now but having to facewalk mobs like we had to on live is not just accepting the status quo. They are working to make things more difficult and classic.

Lets see how easy it is to midnight mallet a dragon out of a train when the dragon and the train decides they dont want to chase you around wherever you want to take them anymore.