Game Mechanics: Druid Tracking Skill Level Too High

[Ele]

Currently Druids cap their tracking skill at 125. This is a post Velious enhancement.
Druids should be capped at 20 skill points on Tracking until January 2000 (Plane of Sky patch) when it gets bumped to 50, then bumped again post-Velious.

Skill Level 20
Classic -> Plane of Sky patch

NewGroup postings from December 22, 1999
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....o/xSMzTbTtg8gJ

At least with druids their current cap of 20 makes the skill nearly useless...
but bards have far *better* tracking than rangers in basically every way.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....o/xvwPat8-U18J

The druids lack armor and weapon choices. As a
character of nature, tracking seems fit and a skill of only 20 is terrible.
A skill of 75 is ok but no where near the ranger cap.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....o/Iu0obg8vsukJ

Druids should keep the tracking skill, and it should be higher than 20
(my argument is that it should be capped higher than a bard's
but...the bard's is too high), but not 75. 50 sounds like a reasonable
cap. Further, the skill should be improved so that rangers (and
rangers only) can do more with it, as was requested. My one gripe is
having to wait till level 20 for it, though. A lower level would be
nicer, maybe 12 or so.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....o/gLOKbFj2-OsJ

I'll take Tracking, capped at 20,
over that any day. Honestly, I find Tracking to be a useful tool
even capped at 20, I'm not sure I want the cap raised.

Skill Level 50
The following patch bumped it to a skill level of 50. Plane of Sky patch -> Post Velious patch

January 20, 2000 (Plane of Sky patch) https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....s/GDyzC4OScIoJ

*Druid Enhancement*
The skill cap on a Druid's tracking skill has been increased. This
change was implemented based upon general public opinion that the
former cap was far too low for the skill to be even marginally viable.

Confirmed via EQ Caster's Realm Dec. 2000 says Skill cap of 50.
http://web.archive.org/web/200012171...ides/Druid.asp

Finally, should be bumped up to skill level of 125 in a post-Velious patch

Skill Level 125
March 6, 2001 Patch Message http://everquest.allakhazam.com/hist...es-2001-1.html

-- The tracking skill cap for Druids has been raised to 125. It was the
intent for druids to be better at tracking than they were, however
before the scroll bar, smaller skill numbers were often considered
better. With the tracking improvements from the last patch, this
increase was appropriate.

[oddibemcd]

Couldn't believe this, so I checked out the old Prima strategy guide for RoK and lo and behold, it lists druid tracking as maxing out at 50 as well.

[Calabee]

bards are better tracker then druids till velious? lawl

[Ele]

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

bards are better tracker then druids till velious? lawl

The original devs said lower tracking skill was "better" as it didn't clutter the limited tracking window with stuff across the zone. But with the unlimited track window here...

[Splorf22]

ITT: TMO/FE/BDA prepare to PL ranger/bard trackers

More seriously: nice research. It's amazing you can find stuff like this after the server has been up 3+ years

[Handull]

nice work, but would seem only fair to fix this bug and also remove the scroll bar from the tracking window at the same time, since they were explicitly tied together on live, as evidenced by the patch notes.

[melkezidek]

Not that I dont agree this should have been in. But by the time this does go in it is going to be scheduled to go out? So.... whats the point?

[SamwiseRed]

I was just telling someone bard track was supposed to be higher than druids. i had no idea druid track was that low but i did think our emu one was a little off. good find.

[Froglok]

As painful as the change is...

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[Ele]

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

nice work, but would seem only fair to fix this bug and also remove the scroll bar from the tracking window at the same time, since they were explicitly tied together on live, as evidenced by the patch notes.

All for limiting the number of targets in the tracking window and removing the scroll functionality, if we can get a UI fix on this.

Cross-Reference to previous bug report regarding scroll bar for tracking window.
http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...ad.php?t=20264