Game Mechanics: Necro pets should not equip two of the same weapon until January 2000 patch era

[Dolalin]

Necro pets should not equip two of the same weapon until January 2000 patch era. To get a necro pet to dual wield, classically you had to give them two different kinds of weapon.

At the same time, this other bug can be fixed: pets should not equip items in their offhand unless they have the dual wield skill.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...ght=dual+wield

Patch message:

Date : 29/01/2000

Topic : Patch

January 28th, 7:00pm
Emergency Patch

The servers are currently being brought down individually for an emergency update. This update is being done to correct a bug in the server code that led to the instability that the servers have experienced over the past week. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Included with this patch are several changes that were not supposed to occur until the regular patch next week. These changes are inseparable from the changes required to fix the network problems, and as such are being implemented a little earlier than we would like. There will be additional changes in the next patch that we wanted to include with the current changes, however to reduce overall downtime and customer inconvenience, they are being postponed until next week.

Changes in Current Patch

Warriors

Warriors now have a chance to strike a "Crippling Blow" when berserk. "Crippling Blow" is much the same as a "Critical Hit" with increased damage and an integral stun.

Magicians and Necromancers

We discovered a bug whereby all NPCs will not utilize their "Dual Wield" skill unless they have a weapon equipped in their off-hand. This bug would not allow magician and necromancer pets to use their "Dual Wield" skill unless handed two weapons by their masters. Since magician pets could not wield weapons at all, they never used their "dual wield" skill.

Correcting this bug would cause all NPCs above the mid-20s to suddenly begin using their "dual wield" skill to attack players with their off-hand. This would cause a drastic shift to game balance, as most non-pet NPCs are generally considered balanced.

Magicians may now equip their pets with weapons. This will allow their pets to utilize their "dual wield" skill, thus increasing the number of attacks that the pet can make per round.

Since magician pets can now wield weapons, an ability previously reserved for necromancers, high level necromancer summons (44 or above) will now randomly cast spell effects upon the creatures they fight.

An additional change has been made to make it easier for necromancers and magicians to equip their pets. Previously, necromancers had to equip their pets with two *different* weapons in order enable them to "dual wield". This change allows magicians and necromancers alike to hand their pet two *identical* weapons, thus making it easier for them to get their pet to "dual wield".

These changes drew our attention to the disparity that exists between melee characters and caster pets. Both of these pets, after the initial round of changes, could wield certain weapons that would significantly increase their attack speed. We acknowledge that necromancers always had this ability, and apologize for our delay in addressing it, but weapons will no longer increase the attack speed (lower the attack delay) of a pet.

In the near future, several new spells are planned for necromancers of level 12 and above, including a new type of necromancer-only spell that is very group-friendly. We were planning to include these new spells with the changes in pet/weapon interaction, but those additions require downtime best restricted to the planned update schedule. We expect to implement the new spell effects in the next patch, tentatively scheduled for next week.

- The EverQuest Team

Full source:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...&postcount=115

Partial in-era source:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....s/gAd16SEdyBoJ

[DMN]

From what I recall this affects everything, not just pets. The patch notes are also slightly incorrect. it was the weapon SPEED that had to be different. Wasn't uncommon to loot some mob that only had been fighting with a single weapon, to then discover 2 weapons on their corpse. always the same reason -- same attack speed.

[Dolalin]

I'll see if I can nail that down a bit better DMN.

For now, it's interesting to note that the trope of "necros giving their pets 2 fs daggers" is inaccurate. It was one fs dagger and one normal dagger or summoned dagger, due to the way this worked.

(oh and a nod to Verant's terrible testing in that Mage pets were always supposed to dual wield and it took them a year and a half to fix it...)

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....s/_7PLyKOVAxYJ

1/29/00

Lokari wrote:
>
> I've seen several people complain about the nerf to necros. I've read
> the 1/28 patch message several times, and I'm having trouble
> understanding how this constitutes a nerf (I don't play a necro, so
> perhaps that's why I don't understand).
>
> Could someone explain clearly why this is a nerf?
>
> --
> www.enteract.com/~lokari
> "No one of consequence"
Necromancer pets used to use the delay of the weapon, instead of their default
delay of 27 or 30. (I'm not sure which. It wasn't huge, but they weren't
speedy, either.) Thus, you could give a Necro a level 1 Summoned Dagger, with a
delay of 21, and speed them up a lot. This would then stack with the
Augument/Intinsify Death spells, which have a built-in Haste effect, as well as
any Enchanter speed buffs you could get. Thus, a skeleton pet with a steel and
fine steel dagger and Augument Death was a whiling engine of destruction, and
the same pet with Enchanter support became a rogue blender set on "Frappe."

As of the last patch, pets no longer use the delay of the weapon, only their own
default delay. This dramaticly reduces a skeleton pet's attack speed, even with
full buffs. Personally, I don't think they're totally crippled, they just
aren't as mind-bogglingly deadly as they used to be. However, they *are* less
powerful than they were on Thursday. At the same time, Magician pets can now
dual wield, which increases their effective damage potential. Since Magician
pets never could wield a weapon, they were never able to benefit from the double
dagger trick, so this to Magicians, this change is only for the good. Many
Necros see this as Magicians getting an upgrade, while Necros get screwed,
despite the fact that Elementals were *always* supposed to be able to dual
wield, and never have until now.

How this will all fall out eventually, remains to be seen. I doubt that
Magicians will lose the ability to summon weapons, but I wouldn't be totally
suprised if the Sword of Runes is changed. It currently procs Ward Summoned.
In the hands of a PC, it is an interesting, but mostly useless toy, just like
anything else a Magician can summon. However, in the hands of an NPC, including
pets, weapon procs will allegedly go off against any target, and at any level.
Supposedly, you can hand a Sword of Runes to a 1st level Necromancer pet, and it
will occaisionally proc it's 35 point DD against any target. Up till now, this
hasn't been a huge concern, because you still had to find a level 29 Magician
who had bothered to buy the spell, and who would give a 1st level character the
time of day, much less a summoned sword. However, in the hands of a high-level
dual wielding Elemental, the sword's proc may actually be something to reckon
with, especially if it really does go off against any target.

(Please note, that I say allegedly and supposedly because I've never been in a
situation to test it, not because it doesn't actually happen. The only proc'ing
weapons I've owned are a Water Crystal Staff, a Staff of Writhing, and several
Tentacle Whips, none of which are something you'd normally consider handing to a
pet.)

Marc Fuller

[Dolalin]

I named this thread "necro pets" but actually Enchanter pets should be subject to the same limitations I would think. I forgot they existed. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[DMN]

Makes sense. It was probably in since launch that animations could DW just like necro pets. it is interesting though, if you take the pacth notes as exclusive authorities, as it says "an ability previously reserved for necromancers".

Just like these patch notes here talking about different weapons when it was really the difference in delay/weapon speed. Close but no cigar.

[Daldaen]

On Al’Kabor, even in PoP, you had to give charmed pets two different weapons to forever them to dual wield given they could wield weapons at all. They would equip the first weapon and eat a second weapon if it were a duplicate.

It seems like their fix in 2000 only applied to summoned pets. Charmed pets should always eat duplicate weapons in the P99 timeline.