EQ1 AA changes

[Trebla]

Originally Posted by Kreugen

WoW is a generational leap in gameplay over everything out there, and I laugh at anyone who disputes that.

Yet you can't give a single argument as to why? The rehashed shit people are saying about how good WoW raids are, could be restated with the word "WoW" replaced with "EQ" without making major changes to the rest of the flow. That's the point. WoW is a generational leap ahead of OoW EQ. But EQ is a generational leap ahead of OoW EQ, too. Hell, EQ2 is a generational leap ahead of OoW EQ.

What's wrong with people just agreeing that both games have good raids that are very similar that mainly differ due to the underlying mechanics of the game?

[Kreugen]

It'd be somewhat hard to explain shear to a non-wow player, other than "you have 1 second to react to a spell being cast, and the global refresh timer on the abilities you are using to retain aggro is 1.5 seconds. Don't fuck up!" In practice, though, shear is just a more frequent version of fear blocking. Again, though, how often does EQ call upon the tank to have to react to much of anything?

But yeah, you do get a better idea of it simply because WoW actually has graphics showing you what is going on instead of just scrolling chat text. But watching the vidoes, and actually doing the raids afterwards is quite a difference. Like I had no idea about the lacross mini-game during Vaashj until I actually prepped for the encounter. Watching the video is just a mob you beat on, followed by some adds.

[Nakilos]

I get that, and even looking at Illidan to me its a "boring" fight compared to some of the older fights really - C'thun for example or Kel'Thuzad are in my opinion pretty exciting to watch fights. . There is just a lot to it, even how the flames are tanked to avoid charges, not drop have flames in places that fuck your melee etc, the horrible nature of parasites if not managed properly. Even Shear as you mentioned is like fear blocking with a 5 second reuse ability, of course its slightly easier since shield block isn't on the GCD.

Of course its pretty funny to think of something you have 1.5 seconds to respond to or you will likely die, nothing ever had that urgency really in EQ.

[Kreugen]

Originally Posted by Trebla

Yet you can't give a single argument as to why?

It should be pretty fucking obvious to anyone who has even seen Onyxia, the very first raid introduced in WoW. You've got a dragon that flies and breathes fire in patterns across the ground that you have to dodge. You've got lava spewing up from cracks in the floor. Did you see anything even close to that in Omens? Was the Everquest engine even capable of it at the time, or does it even do it now? How many dragons took off flying and fucking strafed the room? This shit was considered amazing at the time. You don't need emotes to tell you to run away from a mob - the fucking mob will stick its sword out and start spinning like the tazmanian devil. Simple shit like that makes EQ look old as dirt. When a mob is rampaging, you actually see it. You don't have to target people just to see their health, you don't have to ask in chat for a goddamn mana check. When a mob casts chain lighting, you see lightning forking from person to person. You've got a mob that teleports three random people on top of each other, with a glowing link between them - and they explode every second until they are all 25 feet away from each other. You've got mages tanking mobs that would explode melee. You don't spend a goddamn half an hour casting buffs. You have encounters that are coded from the ground up with unique shit instead of hacked up scripted encounters that still crash the goddamn zone a year after going live.

Without focusing so much on the graphics, its imply the things that WoW is able to show you instead of tell you, if that makes sense. "blah goes on a WILD RAMPAGE!" just isn't nearly as cool as actually seeing Leotheras spin all around the room. "you are hit for 3690 fire damage" vs actually seeing dozens of fireballs fly out in every direction and impact each individual. Christ, what about Nefarian, with effects that go off on a per-class basis.

I could write a damn novel, but just watch a WoW movie of some of the better encoutners and read its writeup on bosskillers.com. Then go watch someone play EQ. Its like the difference between a MUD and EQ.

[Nakilos]

It should be pretty fucking obvious to anyone who has even seen Onyxia, the very first raid introduced in WoW. You've got a dragon that flies and breathes fire in patterns across the ground that you have to dodge. You've got lava spewing up from cracks in the floor. Did you see anything even close to that in Omens? Was the Everquest engine even capable of it at the time, or does it even do it now? How many dragons took off flying and fucking strafed the room? This shit was considered amazing at the time. You don't need emotes to tell you to run away from a mob - the fucking mob will stick its sword out and start spinning like the tazmanian devil. Simple shit like that makes EQ look old as dirt. When a mob is rampaging, you actually see it. You don't have to target people just to see their health, you don't have to ask in chat for a goddamn mana check. When a mob casts chain lighting, you see lightning forking from person to person. You've got a mob that teleports three random people on top of each other, with a glowing link between them - and they explode every second until they are all 25 feet away from each other. You've got mages tanking mobs that would explode melee. You don't spend a goddamn half an hour casting buffs. You have encounters that are coded from the ground up with unique shit instead of hacked up scripted encounters that still crash the goddamn zone a year after going live.

Yea that is another thing. WoW uses the physical environment a lot as part of raid encounters rather than just the mob + other mobs it spawns. Hell Kael is a good example of what you described too during Gravity Lapse the floor lights up...and it only does that during that specific phase of the encounter. Also alternate tanks, like Warlock and Mage tanks where encounters actually lend themselves to those classes being able to do that. Even Illidari Council is an encounter which quite frankly, is pretty "easy" for a WoW raid encounter, still has tons of shit going on all at once - Blizzards, Consecrates, Flame Strikes, mage tanking, the rogue and envenom, the different interrupt cycles for the priest due to BOP and such.

Is there even any ability in EQ which works like C'thuns eye beam? I mean its a reused mechanic now in WoW but it was a pretty unique idea for its time. Hell, have we even got to random secondary targetting by now?

The other thing is the interrupt system in WoW is actually incredibly relevant and strategic to combat in PVP and PVE, and especially in raiding (hi Reliquary of Souls). There isn't really anything like that in EQ.

[lendarios]

Originally Posted by Nakilos

Of course its pretty funny to think of something you have 1.5 seconds to respond to or you will likely die, nothing ever had that urgency really in EQ.

Are you an idiot or just pretending

Solteris one expansion ago

Encounter Mistress, Tanks gets infected with a Virus that takes 2-3 seconds to spread to the whole raid, or the raid dies.

[lendarios]

All the elements you are describing in the WoW raid already exists in the EQ raid; However they are not graphically represented.
Ae mobs in Eq are just represented by a text, you have been hit with a certain amount of damage, in Wow there is a whole graphical component of it. both require the same course of action, cure damage, remove dots.
Granted the Wow raid has a LOT more eye candy, you can see the AE hitting you. But that is about it.
I play a cleric in Eq and a priest in Wow and raid wise they are the same shit. Except that wow is a lot more pretty.

The only thing is diferent was the limited amount of rez you can do in wow vs EQ while in combat.

[Trebla]

Originally Posted by Kreugen

I could write a damn novel, but just watch a WoW movie of some of the better encoutners and read its writeup on bosskillers.com. Then go watch someone play EQ. Its like the difference between a MUD and EQ.

You essentially just described how the graphics engine make WoW's raids different from EQs. The same thing can happen (or is happening) in raids in both games, but because you see the fireballs and eye beams it's more challenging? God forbid directional and targetted AEs!!!! We haven't been seeing things like that for close to a decade! It's certainly more spectator friendly. But those elements are all present in EQ (and have been for quite some time), just without the visual presentation. WoW's presentation is better. Great. Not the argument at hand, but glad you've nailed a coffin in that one.

Originally Posted by Kreugen

You have encounters that are coded from the ground up with unique shit instead of hacked up scripted encounters

Fuck, there it goes again... make EQ the subject and WoW the target and the statement is equally valid. "coded from the ground up with unique shit" and "hacked up scripted encounters" seem like synonyms to me; other than your unrelated jab at server crashes that sentence made no argument. The infrastructure that crashes the EQ servers is a different issue, has nothing to do with the complexity of the encounter. I'm certainly not arguing that server stability isn't a problem.

[Nakilos]

Is any of the EQ die hards going to demonstrate how EQ does anything comparable at all? Because when I see statements like

I play a cleric in Eq and a priest in Wow and raid wise they are the same shit. Except that wow is a lot more pretty.

The only thing is diferent was the limited amount of rez you can do in wow vs EQ while in combat.

I really have to wonder.

[Nakilos]

Encounter Mistress, Tanks gets infected with a Virus that takes 2-3 seconds to spread to the whole raid, or the raid dies.

You know 2-3 seconds in a WoW raid to respond to anything is the equivalent of an eternity right.

[Kylax]

Originally Posted by lendarios

/sigh

People in EQ do not share the strategies involve in killing a mob as openly as WoW does.
It has been that way since the beginning.

Perhaps they should. That shit made sense when a server was cutthroat with 3 other guilds fighting for raid content. Not for a dying community.

I bit the bullet and resub'd to EQ just to see how well this AA change could change the pace of the game and me perhaps see some of the stuff I missed in the last 4 or 5 expansions. I have my level 65 ranger with about 70 aa's.

I spent the entire night (roughly 4 hours) LFG because no was around that level to group up with and the groups I got invites for were zones where I didn't have the expansion! I tried solo'ing the Halls of Honor hot zone trash out front and found that even with AM3 and EQ it took a long ass time to kill shit. Ironically enough I was running WoW in another window and was plugging away at a couple of dailies while doing this.

My point is players shouldn't have to be punished like that if they want people playing the end game. Besides the AA exp revamp they should do ALL exp up to the max level cap for whatever expansion and make it more solo friendly and when I say that I don't mean this task crap. I'd like to see some of the newer raid content in EQ, but I will not do it in EQs current state; not with WoW around.

[Saban]

I hate mobs in high level zones in EQ, they like to proc 500-1k DDs and shit like that.

Tone down the mobs and make it easier to get up to 75, or even 80.

[Kreugen]

Well, the graphic bit wasn't speaking of the challenge level, just the fact that the gameplay is a generational leap ahead. You react to what you see happening on screen instead of what the text tells you is happening.

I guess next you'll be saying that Gemstone plays just like WoW.

Every WoW encounter is not a 6-phase 50 paragraph walkthrough masterpiece. That would get old.

In practice, EQ is difficult mostly due to the absolutely shitty situational awareness. You see your target and your group, that's it. Given that, there's only so much EQ can do. Its limited by the relative blindness of the interface.

[Kreugen]

Originally Posted by Saban

I hate mobs in high level zones in EQ, they like to proc 500-1k DDs and shit like that.

Tone down the mobs and make it easier to get up to 75, or even 80.

Level 30 mobs in TSS do that.

[Saban]

Originally Posted by Kreugen

Level 30 mobs in TSS do that.

Yea, the first place i noticed it was draniks scar, and then again in the level 50ish area in TSS.