Interesting details on EQ AC formulae and the Monk Nerf

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

Full thread:
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=monkbalance&message.id=7767&view=by_date_ascending&page=1&no_redir=true

Bits I found interesting in Kavhok's long post:

"Your AC cap was lowered. That was absolutely and unequivocally a
nerf. I didn't mean in any way to imply otherwise."

and

"The problem was that the average plate-equipped warriors and
knights had barely any lead on monks in mitigation, due to the
monk bonus, but the monk still had the lead in evasion. Contrary
to popular belief, this is what prompted the nerf to monk
mitigation, NOT high-end monks being rampage tanks."


kaev

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

<foreverspam@lamenames.net> wrote:
> Full thread:
> http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=monkbalance&message.id=7767&view=by_date_ascending&page=1&no_redir=true
>
> Bits I found interesting in Kavhok's long post:
>
> "Your AC cap was lowered. That was absolutely and unequivocally a
> nerf. I didn't mean in any way to imply otherwise."
>
> and
>
> "The problem was that the average plate-equipped warriors and
> knights had barely any lead on monks in mitigation, due to the
> monk bonus, but the monk still had the lead in evasion. Contrary
> to popular belief, this is what prompted the nerf to monk
> mitigation, NOT high-end monks being rampage tanks."

Double speak.

The data that is omitted would go far toward putting in perspective the
change and completely belie that their intent was "Warrior > Knight > Monk >
Bard > Ranger = Beastlord = Rogue" (or make me question their programming
ability).

A comparison to *cloth* classes might be enlightening, knowing that "the
nerf was partially repealed and the monk AC cap was *raised* to the same level
as druids and beastlords", and especially in light of the unelaborated
"Class AC caps were changed. Monks were lowered the most".

The omission of data above level 60, on the eve of an expansion raising the
level to 65, is downright suspicious. =)

And with what little hard data is included, the figures are skewed by the
methods (i.e., parsed "against NPCs 3-4 levels lower"), especially in light
of the changes the right hand was making with mob levels in PoP and the exp
bonus given to fighting higher level mobs shortly after the PoP release.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 07:47:18 -0600, Faned <faned@wyld.qx.net> wrote:

>The omission of data above level 60, on the eve of an expansion raising the
>level to 65, is downright suspicious. =)

They're out to get ya! I'm tellin ya, it's a conspiracy!

Read the whole thing, or Kahvok's posts anyway, and, just for
giggles, focus on comprehension rather than paranoia. They
were working with convoluted legacy code that implemented
complex and poorly designed mechanics. They couldn't (can't)
redo the combat system without retuning vast numbers of
encounters. The mere fact that they were reduced to parsing
simulated encounters in order to understand how the melee
system worked in practice tells us just how unwieldy a beast
they were (are) managing, and this was pre-PoP.

It's pretty amusing really. I always figured that was the
way things were, but this is the first time (to my knowledge)
that it's been publicly admitted. The sad part is that they
really had no choice, the return on investment for rewriting
the game code and rebuilding the encounters would've been
very negative, as would the player community's reaction to
the inevitable problems after the 3+ days of downtime for
the rollout.


kaev

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

<foreverspam@lamenames.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 07:47:18 -0600, Faned <faned@wyld.qx.net> wrote:
>
> >The omission of data above level 60, on the eve of an expansion raising the
> >level to 65, is downright suspicious. =)
>
> They're out to get ya! I'm tellin ya, it's a conspiracy!
>
> Read the whole thing, or Kahvok's posts anyway, and, just for
> giggles, focus on comprehension rather than paranoia.

It's not paranoia. It's common sense. They monk nerf was announced in
preparation for PoP, the expansion that raised the level limit to 65, and
we've just been shown that they only data they bothered to gather was
limited to level 60 (or that they are willing to admit they gathered,
depending on how paranoid you want to be, which doesn't matter to me as
"evil" or "stupid" really don't make much difference to me as an end user
seeing the results).

I comprehended his post just fine. I was disgusted, even assuming
everything is "up and up", at their complete and total lack of foresight and
utter ineptness in conception and implementation of the nerf.

If you would care to argue on the side of paranoia, feel free. My opinion
is that they were idiots, you can assume evil if you wish.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:15:17 -0600, Faned <faned@wyld.qx.net> wrote:

><foreverspam@lamenames.net> wrote:
>> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 07:47:18 -0600, Faned <faned@wyld.qx.net> wrote:
>>
>> >The omission of data above level 60, on the eve of an expansion raising the
>> >level to 65, is downright suspicious. =)
>>
>> They're out to get ya! I'm tellin ya, it's a conspiracy!
>>
>> Read the whole thing, or Kahvok's posts anyway, and, just for
>> giggles, focus on comprehension rather than paranoia.
>
>It's not paranoia. It's common sense. They monk nerf was announced in
>preparation for PoP, the expansion that raised the level limit to 65, and
>we've just been shown that they only data they bothered to gather was
>limited to level 60 (or that they are willing to admit they gathered,
>depending on how paranoid you want to be, which doesn't matter to me as
>"evil" or "stupid" really don't make much difference to me as an end user
>seeing the results).

Good grief man, do you live to argue? or argue to live? Has it
never occured to you that not only does the world not revolve
around you, but maybe, just maybe, it's not supposed to?

EQ is a game, not a pacemaker, not a critical avionics system
for a jetliner, not a program to put a woman on Mars (I do have
a sister-in-law I'd like to voluteer to be first for that), not
even a piece of accounting software. There is no money to be
made in the flawless design, development, or maintainance of an
MMORPG, nobody's gonna pay for it, it would be a recipe for
financial disaster. Your expectations are beyond unreasonable.


kaev

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)

<foreverspam@lamenames.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:15:17 -0600, Faned <faned@wyld.qx.net> wrote:
>
> ><foreverspam@lamenames.net> wrote:
> >> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 07:47:18 -0600, Faned <faned@wyld.qx.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> >The omission of data above level 60, on the eve of an expansion raising the
> >> >level to 65, is downright suspicious. =)
> >>
> >> They're out to get ya! I'm tellin ya, it's a conspiracy!
> >>
> >> Read the whole thing, or Kahvok's posts anyway, and, just for
> >> giggles, focus on comprehension rather than paranoia.
> >
> >It's not paranoia. It's common sense. They monk nerf was announced in
> >preparation for PoP, the expansion that raised the level limit to 65, and
> >we've just been shown that they only data they bothered to gather was
> >limited to level 60 (or that they are willing to admit they gathered,
> >depending on how paranoid you want to be, which doesn't matter to me as
> >"evil" or "stupid" really don't make much difference to me as an end user
> >seeing the results).
>
> Good grief man, do you live to argue? or argue to live? Has it
> never occured to you that not only does the world not revolve
> around you, but maybe, just maybe, it's not supposed to?

The nerf never actually impacted me all *that* much. This isn't arguing for
the fun of it, this is arguing for the sake of the "lesser" monks that I saw
get demolished by it.

I never did much tanking. I did tank Gozzrem (with 5k hp at the time) in
the days right after the nerf to show that it didn't do what it was implied
as the reason for doing it. Nowadays I have a bit under 12k hp, a pocket
cleric, and sometimes a pocket shaman. I tank just fine. =)

> EQ is a game, not a pacemaker, not a critical avionics system
> for a jetliner, not a program to put a woman on Mars (I do have
> a sister-in-law I'd like to voluteer to be first for that), not
> even a piece of accounting software. There is no money to be
> made in the flawless design, development, or maintainance of an
> MMORPG, nobody's gonna pay for it, it would be a recipe for
> financial disaster. Your expectations are beyond unreasonable.

I'll accept that as your realization that my viewpoint was valid, and now I
just shouldn't worry about it. It's not like I'm picketing, it was a post
on usenet. =P