I've found a post on groups.google.com for alt.games.everquest, Dec 8, 1999, responding to a Brad statement.
I've not yet found the original Brad statement, but I can see that around this date Brad reported an improvement to pet pathing. Interestingly was also about the same time the Charm spell was removed from shamans. For the next iteration of Green, we surely need much nerfed pet AI for the server opening.
Thread was called "The NERF List concerning Shamans"
I found another thread, Brad's Latest PR - Comments? (Long Post), Dec 7, 1999 quoting in full the aforementioned Brad post. Some interesting stuff there (such as the purchased potions not being in game from day 1, and shaman/enchanter pets at 39+ were in a more powerful form at release!). I'm sure lots of timeline / bug stuff can be mined from this! I've copy pasted their copypaste post below:
The following is a copy of a post by Brad. Just something I noticed, but
there seems to be a slight lack of minuses (I.E. Levitate Nerf from the
latest patch). I won't comment further because I have in a couple of other
posts, but I would like to see other comments on the plusses and minuses
listed by Brad.
START QUOTE
I and the rest of the 'nerfing team' put the following document together
listing both enhancements and 'nerfs' we've made to the game since launch.
And while we probably forgot some things, both negative and positive (please
let us know and I'll update the document), I think it puts in perspective
the ratio of positive vs. negative changes to the game we've made. I also
feel it heartily invalidates the assertion that we are out to make the game
harder or to have players advance slower overall, or that 'all we do is
nerf'.
The following is broken down by class, and then addresses those changes made
that affect the whole game. Changes we feel are positive from just about any
perspective are denoted with a '+', and those some players might consider a
'nerf', but that we felt were important for the long term health of the
game, are denoted with a '-'.
(again, I'm sure we've forgotten some things, both '+' and '-'; please feel
free to comment and add items).
WIZARDS:
+ Added additional means by which to obtain Ice Comet
+ Made Researching much easier
+ Added more high level spells
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Enhanced High Level (35+) Meditation
+ Enhanced AoE Spells to let Wizard effect more creatures
+ Added Plane Travel Spells
+ Enhanced Specific Wizard Stun Spells
+ Added AoE slow monster spell (c.f. Bonds of Force)
RANGERS:
+ Introduction of better average armor that is easier than most to get +
Critical Bow hits
+ Many new quests requiring a tracker to find outdoor spawn
+ Made Ebony Blade group friendly
+ More variety of items obtained via the Forage skill
+ Increased defensive skill caps (parry, dodge)
+ Added innate resistance to fire and cold
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Added additional Ranger Spells
+ Changed Some Spell Casting Skills to allow easier Skilling (c.f. Dance of
the Fireflies)
DRUIDS:
- DOTs changed negatively, making Kiting less efficient
+ DoT changed positively to enhance group play
+ Many new quests requiring a tracker to find outdoor spawn
+ Increased druid's tracking ability
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Enhanced High Level (35+) Meditation
+ Enhanced Pet/Charmed Animal Pathing
+ Enhanced Some Druid Anti-Movement Spells (c.f. Ensnare, Grasping Roots,
etc.)
+ Lowered the Casting Level of Some Druid Teleport Spells
PALADINS:
+ Added Archery
+ Added innate resistance to disease
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Increased stats of Armor of Ro items
SHADOWKNIGHTS:
+ Spell changes (added lifetap)
+ Made Harm Touch less resistible
+ Added innate resistance to poison and disease
- DOTs changed negatively, making Kiting less efficient
+ DoT changed positively to enhance group play
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+/- Feign Death Changes - Better for Low Level Character, Better for High
Level once learning curve has passed
+ Made Certain Spells Harder to Resist (c.f. Invoke Fear)
+ Changes to Pet Appearances
CLERICS:
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Enhanced High Level (35+) Meditation
- Resurrect Changes (Players come back sick)
+ Made Certain Spells Harder to Resist (c.f. Invoke Fear)
+ Reduced the Casting Time of Some Spells (c.f. Word of Healing/Health, Ward
Series)
MONKS:
+/- Feign Death Changes - Better for Low Level Character, Better for High
Level once learning curve has passed
+ New tailoring armor
+ Added items that boost stats, etc.
+ Added innate resistance to fire
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
NECROS:
- LifeTap/Dots changed
+ Some Lifetap Spells Made more mana efficient
- High Level (39+) Pets weakened
+ DOTs made more efficient
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Enhanced High Level (35+) Meditation
+ Necromancer Pet Buff Spells Strengthened
+ Added Special Items to let Necromancers Summon Stronger Pets
+ Corrected Bug that let monsters attack you from far distances through your
pet
+ Lots of New Spells (c.f. Screaming Terror, Pact of Shadow, Vampiric Curse,
Bond of Death, Summon Corpse, etc.)
+ Enhanced Call of Bones Series
+ Enhanced Screaming Terror
- Added a Recast Time to Pact of Shadow
+ Made Certain Spells Harder to Resist (c.f. Invoke Fear)
+ Added New Looks to Necromancer Pets
- Removed Charm
+ Enhanced Pet Pathing
+ Reduced the Casting Time of Some Necromancer Spells
+ Made Research Easier & Fixed Broken Research
+ Added Quests to let Necromancers Quest (instead of Research) their pets +
Enhanced Effectiveness of Some Spells (Shadow Vortex, Surge of Enfeeblement,
Ignite Bones, Dead Man Floating, etc.)
Magicians:
+ New summon item spells
- High Level (39+) Pets weakened
+ Better mid+ level pets (they cast spells now)
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Enhanced High Level (35+) Meditation
+ Magician Pet Buff Spells Strengthened
+ Enhanced Pet Pathing
+ Added Special Items to let Magicians Summon Stronger Pets
+ Corrected Bug that let monsters attack you from far distances through your
pet
+ Made Magician Research Easier - especially for their pets
+ Added Spell Effects to most Magician Summoned Items
+ Enhanced AoE Spells to let Magicians effect more creatures
+ Reduced Mana Cost of Damage Shields
+ Reduced Casting Time of Ward Series
+ Made the Malise Series Stack Better
+ Made the Burnout Series Better
BARDS:
+ Added stat and other bonuses to instruments
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Corrected Bug that let monsters attack you from far distances through your
pet
+ Added Addition Effects to Some Bard Songs
+ Added New Bard Songs
+ Added Ability for Bards to Punch 'Magic Only' Creatures
+ Increased the Power of Some Bard Songs (c.f. Chant Series, Fifil's, etc.)
WARRIORS:
+ Added critical melee hits
+ Later increased chance of critical hits
+ More Hit Points
+ Innate Magical Resistance
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Added Berserking
ROGUES:
+ Added Poison skill
+ Thrown Weapon Critical Hits
+ Minimum Backstab Damage Implemented
+ Minimum Backstab Damage Later Upped
+ Hide/Sneak Enhanced
+ Added innate resistance to poison
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Improvements to Poison Skill
ENCHANTERS:
+ Jewelry Trade
- High Level (39+) Pets weakened
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Enhanced High Level (35+) Meditation
+ Made Tishan stack better and removed recasting time
+ Corrected Bug that let monsters attack you from far distances through your
pet
+ Made Certain Spells Harder to Resist (c.f. Invoke Fear)
+ Increased Durations of All Illusions
+ Made Research Easier
- Made Illusion Wolf OD Only
+ Added Mana Enchant Spells to Allow Item Enchantment
+ Made Enchanter Pets Look Different
+ Enhanced Certain Spells (curse of the simple mind, etc.
+ Added More Effects to High Level Illusion Spells
+ Better Pet Pathing
SHAMAN:
+ Added Shrink Spell
- Took too long to recognize Alchemy bug
- High Level (39+) Pets weakened
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Enhanced High Level (35+) Meditation
+ Made Malise stack better and removed recasting time
+ Better Pet Pathing
- DOTs changed negatively, making Kiting less efficient
+ DoT changed positively to enhance group play
+ DoT's Made Stronger
+ Corrected Bug that let monsters attack you from far distances through your
pet
- Removed Charm Spell
+ Increased the Duration of Buffs
ALL MELEE:
+ Purchasable Potions added, giving more versatility to melee
classes and adding a money sink to the game to help the economy
ALL CASTERS:
- Removal of Manastone
+ Made it such that you can see meditating (levels 35+)
+ Implemented Specialization
ALL:
+ HALVED experience loss death penalty
- Removal of weightless box spawn
+ Purchasable weightless box added
- Introduction of Frenzy code (after level 19)
+ New emotes and animations
+ New graphics for weapons
+ Populated Plane of Fear
+ Populated Plane of Hate
+ Populated Kedge Keep
+ Populated and added Temple of Solusek Ro
+ Increased range for evac and teleport spells
+ Added second boat between Freeport and Butcherblock
+ Added class specific quests for many classes
+ Increased treasure and experience gain rewards for many older quests -
Upgraded NPC AI such that if an NPC is stuck it can teleport around obstacle
+ Added /follow command
+ Added adjustable clipping plane
+ Added /yell command
+ Added /friends list
+ Increased frequency and complexity of dynamic quests and events
+ Added ability to rearrange spells in spellbook
+ Added additional chat filters
This is the follow up post by Brad from the Official EQ Message Board:
Thanks for all of the responses -- I will compile the valid pluses and
minuses listed in this thread today and have a revised version of the list
by the end of the day. A few items I'd like to address right now:
1. Lay on Hands has ALWAYS had an extremely unlikely chance of fizzling.
There was no change to this.
2. We've made no sweeping across the board increase to fizzling.
3. Meditation time was never increased (it was decreased at least once in
beta, though).
Also, there were a few items posted that from the perspective of the
document are not valid. For example, '(Shadow Knights) - Increased mana cost
for lifetap line of spells.' SKs didn't have that line of spell, and we gave
it to them, but with an increased mana cost relative to necros. This is NOT
a nerf. You may have prefered that the spells were identical to the necro
line, but the fact is you didn't have the line previously, and so this was
an addition. Debating the merit of an addition is not what this list is
about, rather it is to document in general what we've added and taken away
since launch.
I know we are discounting anecdotes, so this link isn't really relevant to the thread as it doesn't include thousands of lines of parses, but it does have some perspectives on enchanter cc / soloing / breaking camps early on in vanilla. If we will accept this kind of evidence, we must ensure not to let the pendulum swing too far.
The Brad quote was really cool. Interesting stuff. I wish it was more specific though so it could tell us whether something is accurate on P99 (ex. Where it says something is strengthened or weakened, to what extent?).
There were two pet nerfs, but shaman pets only got hit by one of them(lower damage per hit-- all pet classes had this happen to them, the mage/necro pets got the iggest nerf), and were only marginally impacted. Enc got hit by both but only marginally impacted by one but hugely impacted by the other (normalized attack speeds). Ench my actually have been the worse hit by the nerf long term, not for their garbage animations, but the normalized attack speeds would lower the potential mana free DPS increases of their charms by around 50%. Ghoul Bok Knight even with the crappy necro haste + FS weapons at the time could 1 v1 ghoul lord and win 9 out of 10 times.
Originally Posted by Jimjam[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Sorry for multi post.
I know we are discounting anecdotes, so this link isn't really relevant to the thread as it doesn't include thousands of lines of parses, but it does have some perspectives on enchanter cc / soloing / breaking camps early on in vanilla. If we will accept this kind of evidence, we must ensure not to let the pendulum swing too far.
I like where he says a broken pet attacking him might not be able to be controlled for the full mez duration on another mob resulting in death. What? I thought Enchanters were totally fine if charm breaks. They just stun and so on. In 24 seconds this guy still can't land a spell to save him from his pet?
Channeling needs a massive nerf or devs aren't trying to recreate classic. Oh and obviously this will shit all over Enchanters trying to solo charm dungeons no matter what they say.
I like the mention of adding warrior crits. Another thing I said wasn't classic that people said I was lying about. That post shows all kinds of shit missing or wrong on P99.
More proof pet AI and pathing was terrible.
Charm removed from Necro too?
Fix channeling. Make charm break in less then 30 to make up for the GIGANTIC list of bugs it had that P99 is covering up.
Originally Posted by azxten[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
I like where he says a broken pet attacking him might not be able to be controlled for the full mez duration on another mob resulting in death. What? I thought Enchanters were totally fine if charm breaks. They just stun and so on. In 24 seconds this guy still can't land a spell to save him from his pet?
Channeling needs a massive nerf or devs aren't trying to recreate classic. Oh and obviously this will shit all over Enchanters trying to solo charm dungeons no matter what they say.
I like the mention of adding warrior crits. Another thing I said wasn't classic that people said I was lying about. That post shows all kinds of shit missing or wrong on P99.
More proof pet AI and pathing was terrible.
Charm removed from Necro too?
Fix channeling. Make charm break in less then 30 to make up for the GIGANTIC list of bugs it had that P99 is covering up.
I believe they’ve already said that channeling isn’t fixable I believe because of something to do with the client or something like that.
But why are you posting this here? If you’re so confident in your evidence why don’t you go post it in the bug forums
03-29-2021, 08:44 AM
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