A new website from the makers of EQ2Wire is almost here…
At last year’s Fan Faire, Leko, champion of PvP balance, stood up after Mercenaries were announced and asked “Will Mercenaries work in PvP?” and then a series of questions about how they would be balanced, tested, etc. Well…better late than never. 
From Gninja:
While I can’t really address everything being said in this post right now I can say we have been taking a look and we have a plan on how to make mercs not quite as overpowered in PVP combat as they are currently. Once we get the fix in place and we can accurately test it I can lay out the plan for you guys.
If you die to a merc you should not take damage to your gear. This will be addressed asap and we should be getting some power tweaks for them out to you as we can.
Feb 042012
The announced removal of Critical Mitigation will coincide with the conversion of Yellow and Red Crit Mit adornments into Health adornments. So why will the replacement adornments have less Health (less than 250 points each) than White health adornments? According to Omougi, it’s because the EQ2 team thinks we should have other viable choices, like DPS. Adornments should be about choice!
From Omougi on the EQ2 Forums:
Our goal with these adornment and spell conversions is to give you guys something in the place of nothing essentially. Before, you were playing a zero-sum game if you had enough crit mit. If you didn’t have enough crit mit, you couldn’t do the encounters — period. All these adornments and spells did is bring you up to a threshold. If you were past that threshold, it does nothing for you.
Now, [while] these adornments and spells actually do increase your survivability at all times – equating the amount of crit mit lost to an equivalent form of HP doesn’t really work out, because any amount of HP is infinitely better than a threshold stat with no use. If you were slotting your adornments for survivability before, you are still slotting them for survivability with HP – the only change is the adornments have been made more powerful in their actual effectiveness with crit mit out of the picture.
This change equates to a free survivability gain across the board, and we need to be very careful with numbers at first to ensure things do not get drastically easier. Changing the difficulty of content is not the goal here – changing the accessibility of content is.
A point which has been made by several raiders on the official forums as well as Flames is that the top end guilds already have more than enough Crit Mit on all their characters to meet the requirements of the zones they’re doing. These changes only affect up-and-coming guilds which are trying to do harder content, but can’t because they haven’t spent months farming obsolete gear whose only saving grace is Crit Mitt.
An oft-seen comment is “The EQ2 team will just replace needing 290 Crit Mit with needing 100k health to survive.” Omougi has a great response to this:
A few more HP is possibly the difference between an AE one-shotting and being survivable. We really don’t want guilds to “force” their members into slotting for survivability if they are trying to push progression. If the HP difference on the adornments was significantly higher, people would feel the need to stack up on HP adorns, similar to how they feel the need to stack up on crit mit adorns now.
We are trying to make customizing your gear with adornments a viable option while progressing through content. If we make an adornment choice too powerful, then there really isn’t much choice there…especially if what you are “forced” into adorning isn’t what your class is about. Many mages and scouts would really prefer to slot more adornments to increase their DPS, but they are forced into critmit adorns in order to not hinder their guild’s chance of progress. We really don’t want to replace crit mit adorns with hp adorns and have essentially the same problem.
and some great news about the relatively limited choice of adornments we have now:
Now, our available choices need some work, specifically with mage options. We are trying to alleviate the problem by allowing more adornments to go in more slots (critbonus, potency, etc), so that scouts do not get more benefit from this change than mages. Adding more adornment choices in the future is definitely something we want to do.
Just a friendly reminder of our friendly reminder, the Goddess Risen event ends next Monday, February 6th to make way for the upcoming Erollisi Day 2012 event.
EverQuest II Executive Producer Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson hands off the producer reins to Holly “Windstalker” Longdale.
Feb 032012
QUESTS
The ?Welcome to Qeynos, Citizen!? quests will no longer fail to update if you?ve completed the Faydwer expert collection.
?Natasha?s Note? can now be completed. Tarakh has moved to Freeport Combined.
?Hand of War? will no longer fail to spawn the Left Eye of Thule if you?ve already done ?Hand of War ? Eye of Fear.?
?Strategic Point? will no longer fail to update if you?ve completed ?Cartography Fun.?
?Tinkering with Toggery? now offers a reward to Beastlords.
From the EverQuest2.com:
A Letter from Smokejumper
Hi there, Norrathians!
As many of you know, I’m the Executive Producer in charge of the entire EverQuest franchise, including EQ, EQII, and the upcoming (and very different) “EverQuest Next.” For the last two years, I’ve also been the Producer for your EverQuest II world, and it’s been absolutely a blast working with the team, the game, its features, and most of all, its players.
However, our company’s visions for the EQ Franchise are bigger in scope than what I can coordinate alone on EQII while also overseeing the rest of the franchise.
Therefore, we’ve brought Holly Longdale back to SOE to take over the Producer position for EQII. In fact, she’s been working with the EQII team since last December. (We delayed announcing her presence so she got a chance to come up to speed for a few weeks before needing to answer a thousand questions.)
But, the honeymoon is over and it’s time for her to “take the con.”
Holly and I are still working closely together. There is no loss of knowledge in this transition because we still meet and discuss the game’s directions and tactics on a daily basis. Holly will be getting a huge amount of support from the team, myself, and the rest of the company. You still have an excited and motivated dev team, a quality Producer, and a great game.
So please, take a moment and welcome your new Producer to the fold. You’ll still see Smokejumper posts occasionally, but you’ll see a lot more Windstalker posts as well.
~ Dave “Smokejumper” Georgeson
From Holly “Windstalker” Longdale:
A Letter from Windstalker
Greetings Norrathians,
I feel like I’ve come home!
Since starting on the team, I’ve been watching, absorbing, and reading everything I can before officially taking the reins. The opportunity to be a producer on this team is surreal and certainly perfect. And honestly, I am one of you. I’ve been playing EQ2 on the xxxxx server since launch on my main and have several beloved alts. (Editor’s Note: Sanitized for her protection!) EverQuest as a franchise has had a place in my life for well over a decade now. It’s rooted in my history and a source of deep and seeded pride.
A bit about me – I played EQ at launch and had the blessing to change careers to become a Designer on EQ at the time EQ2 was in development. SOE as a whole was as passionate and as close a family then as now. And the players, now as much as ever, are part of that family and great passion. Believe me when I say we hear you. And as gamers, we understand. And as creators, we want to be the best. And we are.
The content and quality of this game is always growing. The advances and features since launch are really staggering. The most recent expansion is really something to be proud of – not just as a team here, but as players. The time and effort put into Dungeon Maker by a lot of careful decorators and designers is beyond impressive. There’s a wealth of creativity and ingenuity being expressed that is second to none in this genre. And we will continue to look ahead to more avenues for your virtual self-expression that makes you real contributors to this fantasy world your avatar, and you, live in. It’s the best MMO around soup to nuts. And I’m here to continue and build on its success.
Under SmokeJumper’s (Dave Georgeson’s) leadership and vision – which I strongly believe in – this team is hard at work creating even more amazing game content for the upcoming Game Update. We have big plans for this game and your experience in it, I promise you. And at the same time, to support the game, we are looking for new and better ways to build fun.
I can’t tell you what a joy it is to be back at SOE. And as much as it feels like home, I’m still absorbing the details, but you will hear from me again soon.
~ Holly “Windstalker” Longdale
Massively first broke the story.
EverQuest II Executive Producer Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson explains the decision to remove the Critical Mitigation stat from the game.
Feb 022012
NOTE: Pushing some more data to Test around 8pm PST.
CRITICAL MITIGATION REMOVAL
Critical Mitigation (the stat) has been removed from the game.
Critical Mitigation no longer displays on the Character pane (for obvious reasons, since it?s no longer in the game).
NPCs no longer use Critical Bonus to add to critical damage.
Buffs and debuffs that have Critical Mitigation elements to them will have those elements replaced with other elements instead, so that those buffs/debuffs do not lose effectiveness.
Critical Mitigation values on adornments will be replaced with hit point values instead.
NOTE: This change has no effect on PvP game play. The ?PvP Critical Mitigation? stat is still useful for game balance in PvP play and is not being changed.
Please visit this link for more information and discussion:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/…topic_id=514354
GENERAL
You can now access your mail without a mailbox! You can either click the mail buff in your buff window, select mail from the EQ2 menu, or use the /start_mail command!
NOTE: You will only be able to send and pickup items and coin by actually clicking on a mailbox in the world.
ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION
Tallon?s Stronghold [Challenge]
Players have more time to defeat Decorin Deathbringer in the Tallon Zek fight before Tallon empowers him.
Vallon?s Tower [Challenge]
Players have more time to defeat Kulaxis in the Vallon Zek fight before Vallon empowers him.
Adds that spawn during the final Vallon zek fight spawn less frequently and have less health. Warlord?s Fury and Siphon cast during the final Vallon Zek Fight no longer clear players current target.
ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
Mystic
Bolstering Spirits now adds maximum health to Bolster. The Critical Mitigation component has been removed.
Deterioration now adds melee damage reduction and potency reduction components to Deterioriate. The Crit Bonus reduction has been removed.
Predator
Noxious Enfeeblement now debuffs potency and melee damage instead of Crit Bonus.
Enhance: Noxious Enfeeblement now improves the Crit Chance, Potency, and melee damage reductions of Noxious Enfeeblement.
Rogue
Enhance: Thieving Essence now siphons Potency and melee damage instead of Crit Bonus.
Shadowknight
Essence Siphoning now adds Potency and melee damage effects to Siphon Strength. The Crit Bonus component has been removed.
Warden
Critical Debilitation is now Aura of Health. Aura of Health grants increased max health instead of critical mitigation.
Warrior
Critical Bulwark is now Robust Bulwark. It grants increased max health instead of critical mitigation.
ADORNMENTS
Adornments that used to give critical mitigation now give maximum health.
MERCENARIES
Shaman mercenaries should more reliably cast their single target ward spells during combat.
Keyrin Curetouch should no longer stack the ?Spirit of the Wolf? spell on players in their maintained buff window after zoning.
Mercenary healers should now heal wounded player pets.
TRADESKILLS
The recipe for Primeval Wristguard of the Animist now makes Beastlord armor instead of Assassin armor.
Tradeskill Apprentice reactants now display provisioner belts as items they can create.
LIVE EVENTS
Erollisi Day
Rex Tinforge now gives proper directions to Priestess Alena in Freeport.
ITEMS
Critical Aegis and Bulwark of Faith procs now give maximum health instead of critical mitigation.
Feb 022012
From Silius on the EQ2 Forums:
Just to clarify some confusion.
- Crit mit as a mechanic is being removed.
- NPC crit bonus was countered by crit mit and we are reducing crit bonus to 0 across the board.
- Critical avoidance is staying around. Critical avoidance is an NPCs way of contesting your chance to critically hit them.
- Replacing the adornments with HP is not to compensate for anything. Since the critical mitgiation stat is no longer useful we are converting to a stat that benefits all players.
- The goal is for this change to not change the difficulty of the encounters. This is why we ask that you all take some time to log on to test once we push it there. We plan on having this on test by the weekend.
Note: NPC crit bonus may be used in the future on a case by case bases and will be considered in the balance of the encounter so that crit mit is not required.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to PM me.
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