CHARMING AND MEZZING

[long.liam]

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

Oh yea, my position is as ethereal as the reality of ‘classic’ itself. Certainly I originally reposted this classic comment from casters realm as it does go against a certain narrative on the forum that charm was basically unused back in 1999 - the post clearly showed it worked at some level.

I do concede that implementation here is unlikely perfect BUT I do think it is functionally sufficient. There are certainly things I’d place at a higher priority (particularly getting newbie yards working classically - making it impossible to spawn camp and making it so newbie yards are full of mobs when overcamped but not overfull of mobs when undercamped).

Honestly fixing newbie yards would be my #1 desire preceding green 2.

I'm not familiar with the Newbie Yard issue. Were the spawn points randomized? Did they have variable spawn rates based off of the number of players in the zone?

[Jimjam]

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

I'm not familiar with the Newbie Yard issue. Were the spawn points randomized? Did they have variable spawn rates based off of the number of players in the zone?

They worked a bit like ancient croc in guk or the alligators in qeynos sewers. A group of mobs would be linked and they wouldn’t respawn until all members of that group had been killed. The respawn time was almost instant though. The spawns were usually spread out (but in the case of paineel the spawns were clumped together).

It was a really elegant solution.

[long.liam]

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

They worked a bit like ancient croc in guk or the alligators in qeynos sewers. A group of mobs would be linked and they wouldn’t respawn until all members of that group had been killed. The respawn time was almost instant though. The spawns were usually spread out (but in the case of paineel the spawns were clumped together).

It was a really elegant solution.

Did you post a Bug Report?

[Jimjam]

It has been posted before. The devs mentioned wishing they had time to fix newbie yards before green was released. Maybe it is forgotten again.

I just recorded a quick lofi video demonstrating the mechanic.

Jump to 1:05 for the good stuff... apologies for not muting combat music!

[pasi]

Man, I missed the Gates of Discord discussion. I love Gates of Discord discussion!

Iirc, Gates of Discord and Omens of War started off at the same expansion before being divided up into separate expansions. Gates may have been designed around level 70 play - which would make sense as to why mid-tier 6man content was hitting as hard as Plane of Time raid encounters (in terms of raw numeric value; not factoring in ATK/rate obviously).

EQ pumped out expansions q6-12 months, so my guess is that it was too late in the development cycle to go back and adjust most content back to level 65. EQ didn't really have players beta test much prior to pumping out the expansion either. I don't recall guilds being asked to test encounters until LDoN. And even then, it was usually the first tier. We (a guild one-daying PoTime) had tested one of the Vex Thal - level Ruj Raids in LDoN (as opposed to Elemental or PoTime level). For GoD, I think we were asked to test Ikkinz 1 or 2?

In retrospect, most of the tuning problems in GoD had to do with trash mobs and encounter adds hitting way too hard. In other words, adds hitting for 3k when bosses hit for 4k. Contrasted with say POP having adds hit for 1k when bosses hit for 3k. So, they may have had time to adjust the bosses damage tables, but I think adds/trash were left alone. The OG Uqua death-spawns quadded for 3k which usually meant a wipe if someone died.

[Degalian]

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

Right, so you have one guy on live thinking the risk vs. reward was worthwhile, and virtually all other Enchanters thinking it was too risky to charm in groups (or solo for that matter).

As I keep repeating, this is not a binary thing. The question isn't "was charming possible in live?" ( of course it was) ... the question is "if it was possible, and some did it, why did so many fewer Enchanters do it on live vs. here?"

Here's a simple thought experiment: let's say P99 is super accurate in most regards, but the charm success rate (or any other mechanic that affects charming, eg. the channeling success rate) is 20% higher here than on live: what would that look like?

I submit that you'd see a server that looks just like live ... only with Enchanters charming a lot more than they did on live. In other words, you'd see P99.

Totally agree, I don't think Charm (and Root for that matter) resists/breaks on P99 match what was on live.
I played chanter there and the way we played/pulled there wasn't any time to handle a pet, let alone handle one, when you are taking care of 5 other mobs in camp, or worse yet, handle a Charm break.
Sure you could charm and sure you could be lucky ... for a while. But then you would have some bad luck, eat dust and leave your group without CC possibly to whipe or at best with a Chanter that has to med up after Rez ---> no good CC for a while.
Not talking about outdoors/snared pets which is childsplay, there you can charm to your hearts content with little risk (other than running out of mana, which would usually happen, because charm broke more often).

And yes we stacked Charisma too back in the day, I just remember it as: can work for a while, usually too much tax on Mana, not worth the risk.

[Jimjam]

I do feel like root was far less reliable on live than here. Like I’d rarely use higher level roots because the chances of an advanced root to last longer than the duration of the basic root felt slim.

I’m not confident in that memory- perhaps I was rooting the wrong level mobs, roots were being dispelled or broken by nukes/aoe. /shrug.

[loramin]

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

I do feel like root was far less reliable on live than here. Like I’d rarely use higher level roots because the chances of an advanced root to last longer than the duration of the basic root felt slim.

I’m not confident in that memory- perhaps I was rooting the wrong level mobs, roots were being dispelled or broken by nukes/aoe. /shrug.

I never played an Enchanter on live, but as a Shaman I remember using the basic "Root" almost exclusively in the classic era, for the same reason ... and this should be something with lots of evidence available.

[loramin]

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

and this should be something with lots of evidence available.

I'm a terrible classic researcher, but I did find these on the Caster's Realm archive (emphasis added):

Originally Posted by https://web.archive.org/web/20011227232314/http://eq.castersrealm.com/playguides/VIEW.ASP?ID=354

2. Second slot : Root (forget enstill; it is worthless. Stick with root, and ALWAYS have it hotkeyed. I use hotkey 3 for this, keeping it directly next to my nuke at hotkey 4)

Originally Posted by https://web.archive.org/web/20010830073545/http://eq.castersrealm.com/playguides/VIEW.ASP?ID=767

Then you ROOT (root only none of that enstil crap!) walk a good distance away but not out of spell range.

[Chortles Snortles]

>castersrealm noob guides taken as definitive proof
(lol)