EQ PvP Changes

[ikkarz]

http://eqlive.station.sony.com/commu...w.jsp?id=63142

Hello Norrath,

Rytan and Hobart have put together quite a few changes for the PVP servers and have changed many of the basic PVP systems. If you have not tried PVP before on one of the EQ PVP servers, now would be a good time to do so!

The new systems and changes are detailed below:

The Watch List:
- Safe Zones: We're still looking into a better solution for the problem of safe zones. Expect some kind of change in the future.
- Point System: There are still concerns of potential exploits with the point system at this time. Therefore the selection of PvP items available on the merchants will be limited to consumable items for now. We'll monitor the accumulation of points after this update. If all goes well, we will add a selection of equipment to the merchants in the near future.
- Sullon Tokens: As a secondary concern with the point system, we are delaying the addition of the turn-in quest for Sullon Zek tokens. If there's a potential problem with the point system that eventually requires us to make adjustments to the way points are awarded, we don't want players to end up with less than full credit for these tokens. Once the point system has had any potential issues ironed out we will add a quest to turn in your tokens for PvP points.

PvP Combat Changes

- Melee attacks have a 50% increased range. This does not affect thrown weapons or archery.
- The maximum damage any one spell can do is now capped at 40% of the target's total hit points, down from 75%.
- Archery damage has been increased to 80% of its base damage in PvP, up from 66%.
- Being stunned while on a horse will now cause the horse to disappear. This only applies to stuns caused by other players.
- Lowered player melee mitigation, effectively lowering Armor Class by 20%. This will increase the damage potential of melee weapons in PvP. Originally the targets full armor class was considered.
- Player spells now have a separate duration field for PvP. Individual spells will continue to be tuned during beta.
- Player spells now have a PvP specific resist mod. Spell lines with resist mods differing from their normal adjusts initially include:
Movement Rate
Root
Enthrall
Mana Drain
Stuns
Direct Damage
Damage over Time
Pet procs/innates
- Added higher level snare spells for rangers/druids with increased resists mods. This should allow them to land snare spells with similar frequency to other snare spells. These spells are available on the PvP merchants for 1 point each.
- Necro and Mage pets have had their PvP resists increased to closer match the existing Beastlord pet resists.
- Lowered the duration of most snare, Enthrall, and Root spells and abilities.
- Berserker snare is no longer unresistable.
- Added a set of pumice stones to the PvP merchants that will cast various forms of dispel magic with a 1.5 second cast, 12 second cast time.
- Arena deaths will now place you at your bind point, and not in shadowrest.
- PvP Resurrection effects now last 5 minutes + 1 minute/negative vitality point. The Max duration is now 15 minutes instead of 25.
- Made further changes to prevent hill ghosting. Please test this and give feedback.
- Ranged weapons are no longer restricted by the Z axis, allowing greater freedom of use on varied terrain.
- Snare will now properly slow mounts. The mount will still be faster then normal running while snared, but will considerably decrease their movement rate.
- Spells now have a minimum chance of landing of 5%, up from 2%.
- Water will no longer cause you to be immune to people outside of water and vice versa.
- Zoning with low health will no longer set your hit points equal to the amount of +HP gear you are wearing.
- Players killed in PvP combat will now spawn in Shadowrest with full equipment. A naked corpse will remain in the location they died for 3 hours. Note that this effectively removes item loot from Rallos Zek. With the addition of no drop augments it became rather trivial to effectively remove item loot from the server anyway, and we felt the benefits of the new death system outweigh the benefits of an item loot system.
- Players who are killed in PvP combat will respawn with special resurrection effects on them. The duration of these effects is variable dependant on how frequently they die.
- Summon Corpse Potions are now usable by any class/race.
- A system to score PvP kills has been implemented. For more information see below.

Scoring System

- The new scoring system will award points to any player who kills another player. If the player is grouped the points will be split between the players in

the group. The points awarded will be based on three things:

1. Level of the killer

2. Scoring Modifier

a. Level Difference (Each kill has a base point cost determined by the level of the killer. All subsequent modifiers apply to this base number.) For each level the killer is above or below the victim, the scoring modifier increase by one point. If you kill some one who is higher level than you, you'll gain more points then you will for a lower level character. You will also subtract points from your modifier for killing a player lower level than you.

b. Infamy Difference - Each time you kill another player, points are added to your infamy pool. At certain thresholds a player will gain an infamy level. When a player is killed, the infamy levels are compared and the killer gains a scoring modifier point for each infamy level his victim is above him. He can also lose scoring modifier points for killing someone who is of lower infamy. Infamy will gradually deteriorate while the player is online.

c. Vitality score - When a player is killed their vitality is set to 10. For each 5 minutes they are alive, they will gain back two points of vitality. This vitality total is added directly to the scoring

d. Group bonus - Groups of 4 or more will receive a bonus % of points for each kill. 4/10%, 5/15%, 6/20%.

3. Time since the victim was last killed by the same player. Players that repeatedly kill the same player will see a steep decrease in the amount of points a player is worth. They will gain half the points for the kill they normally would for each time they kill that player in a 24 hour period. After the score has dropped below 1 point, they will begin to lose points for killing the same player.

Example: Frizznik kills Rytan. Frizznik is level 60, while Rytan is level 62 for a level difference of 2. Frizznik has an infamy level of 5, while Rytan has an infamy level of 2, which results in infamy difference of 3. Rytan has not recently been killed, so his vitality is 0. Level Difference + Infamy

Difference + Vitality = Scoring Point Modifier or 2 + (-3) + 0.

- Each scoring modifier point adds or subtracts 5% to the base score. Normally Frizznik would gain 100 points for killing Rytan, but because of the scoring point modifier he will gain 95 points instead.


Leader Board

- The leader board tracks the players with the most total PvP. A number of other useful statistics will be available in the leader board.
Point Rewards
- Players will be able to redeem their points for equipment via a Lost Dungeons of Norrath style adventure merchant interface. These rewards will span from level 20 on up to 65 and include some pieces that are of elemental quality and possibly beyond.
- A player's point total is capped based on their level. They cannot gain more points once they hit that cap, although they can gain more infamy. There will be a number of consumable PvP items that will be focused on PvP combat, and will only function against other players.

[Angrier]

I really don't understand.. hybrids already rape casters, why must they do even more damage and have an even greater range?

And rangers? As a caster I don't know why they are increasing their dps in PvP, especially when one hit can take 1/3 of my hp.

[Shinrai]

I guess their renewed interest in EQ PvP makes a lot more sense now that we know there'll be no PvP in EQ2. Still not sure there's a huge number of people who care though.

[Ravensign]

What I find curious in all this late in the game PVP work, is what do they plan to gain from the effort?

PvP has always been a small part of EQ, and at this stage of its life cycle, how does this programming and design time correspond to more money for SOE? They would be much better served making changes to EQ to allow it to hold a subscriber base during the EQ2 and WoW era.

Perhaps they feel this is such a move.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Y'know...I'd like to see an item loot solution whereby you can 'ghost' another players items...basicaly if you kill them you can take any item(s) you like, but they only become yours for say...30 minutes or so before they are returned to the user.

[xilsharn]

Maybe they just want the thousands of folks that play on red servers to enjoy themselves?

[Bizanich]

Man, Casters are going to get pounded now

This is, of course,a kneejerk comment out of my ass...but, ouch?

[Itzena]

It'll make a pleasant change from casters standing there and tanking while nuking you to death, I suppose.

[Ronne]

Casters in pvp had it fucking coming. Horses ended any chance a pure melee may have had against a caster. Now maybe pure melee will have a prayer, outside of discing and hoping to land a backstab, or mightystrike+rampage every once in a while.

[Zyphria]

Wow, four years ago this would have rocked.

Too litte, too late.

[Angrier]

Originally posted by Itzena
It'll make a pleasant change from casters standing there and tanking while nuking you to death, I suppose.

Once again, you are forgetting the fundamental concept that EQ pvp is based on: gear. That's where most of the problems stem from, is the fact that given equal levels of attentiveness, the lesser geared has almost no chance of winning. When PvP is based more on skill than on gear is when the "majority" will enjoy EQ PvP imo.

[Northerner]

As a Rogue I am now immediately tempted to continue to ignore EQ's PvP.

[Rhaiq]

- Archery damage has been increased to 80% of its base damage in PvP, up from 66%.

What the fuck??

[Scaffa]

Man, Casters are going to get pounded now

Versus melee, yes. It was getting pretty ridiculous how a wizard could stand there dispelling, nuking and running all day with little or no risk seeing as even if you time hitting them right all you get is a rune to soak up the damage. The risk of running up and meleeing someone would be similar to using a 10 range 500 damage nuke, which can still be resisted all the time. Remember though, they're getting a complete spell overhaul with almost every spell being looked at and it's resist rate evaluated. With this patch everyone is going to be taking more damage.

Archery damage has been increased to 80% of its base damage in PvP, up from 66%.

What the fuck??

Archery was nerfed a while back in pvp, 80% will still be a little weak but seeing as bowing someone has little risk or drawbacks it can't be full damage. With the z-axis range change also, they can just find sweet spots in zones and bow til their hearts content anyways, like most of them did on pvpbeta.

This patch won't fix pvp but it'll hopefully make it a little more dangerous and fun. Didn't see a selo's or rapture change mentioned unfortunatly, will have to check when servers go up.

[The Bog]

Melee attacks have a 50% increased range. This does not affect thrown weapons or archery

Oh dear god.