Game Mechanics: Magician pets should not dual wield, or equip weapons before January 2000 patch era

[Dolalin]

Mage pets should not equip weapons given to them, and should not dual wield, until January 2000 patch era.


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

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

Another partial source for the patch message, so it's legit:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....s/gAd16SEdyBoJ

[DMN]

I wonder what the deal was with enchanter animations. Heavily suggests that they could not take weapons either.

I almost never used them back in the day and certainly wouldn't waste fine steel to weaponize them. I know eventually you could get them to DW post kunark. I suspect they were stealth patched along with magicians in this patch , but they didn't want to upset the quite vociferous mages.

[Dolalin]

I'll see if I can find a mention of enchanter pets DWing and when that was possible.

[Dolalin]

This thread has enchanter and necro pets both being able to accept weapons and dual wield:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!se...A/4STwM6-YR98J

1/28/00

On Fri, 28 Jan 2000 01:31:44 GMT, "Jerry The Cow"
<leigh1*@hfx.andara.com> wrote:
>
>"JubJub McRae" <mrju...@REMOVETHISPART.hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:3890c3b8.408787@news.ne.mediaone.net...
>> After 35 levels of playing a mage, I can say with some certainty that
>> mage pets, despite GZ and Abashi's assertions, do not
>> dual wield, at
>> ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
>> least not on the public servers. Never, ever, ever has any pet I
>> have summoned attacked more than twice per round.
>
>Now I know very little about mages, but...
>
>After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that you
>may be confusing double-attack with dual-wield. Correct me if I'm
>reading your post wrong.
How do you draw this conclusion. I am most definitely referring to
dual wield. Attacking with both hands, or two weapons. This occurs
in necro and enchanter pets at L29 (only if you hand them weapons, it
must be noted). Magician pets cannot be handed weapons, so they never
get the extra attack of dual wield. Perhaps you have double attack
and dual wield confused.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....A/AnCKomg1dxcJ

The whole thread is basically about mage pets not getting dual wield. This post confirms it was another alchemy f-up.

1/28/00

...

The good news is, it looks like we have another alchemy screwup here -
enough mages have responded to the inaccurate assertion by GZ/Gordon,
and gordon has listened and admitted the error of their assertion
(that mage pets do dual wield). I truly, truly wish that they would
have listened to the /bugs I had sent in about it, the feedback, and
letters - this has been a long standing problem, and once again, the
aloofness and sloppy casual nature of verant bug testing have blinded
them to innumerable clear, concise player descriptions of the problem.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....A/J28NDxSgRrIJ

Edit: Another post about Enchanters giving their pets two daggers and them dual wielding before the 1/29/00 patch:

No, it wasn't nerfed.
Enchanter pets used to have a max hit of 51 or 52hp, at the same time, necro
and mage pets hit for a max of 70, and shamans a max of 57.

Post patch, enchanter pets hit the same.. for a while these pets were awsome
because it had a very (relatively) low mana cost - 300, compared to 500 and
550 for other classes. And it was very common for them to do 4x53, with dual
daggers +SLW.

Erik Halvorsen <erik.h...@jernia.no> wrote in message
news:38c48819.11564023@news.eunet.no...

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....M/jcF0Pkjta8wJ

[Millburn]

Quality detective work.

[Khorza]

We discovered a bug whereby all NPCs will not utilize their "Dual Wield" skill unless they have a weapon equipped in their off-hand. 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.

Wait so mobs aren't supposed to be able to dual wield unless they have a weapon in their offhand?

And why the mid-20s? Most NPCs would be able to dual wield from level 13 since most NPCs are considered warriors. And that's exactly how it works on P99.