Warrior aggro procs are probably wrong

[Splorf22]

First, I want to emphasize that I can't be 100% sure about all this. I may be setting myself up for another classic beatdown by Nilbog. That disclaimer aside, here goes

The Warrior epic proc should be an AC/ATK debuff

I was having a conversation with Vonhammer (Arteker on these forums, hopefully I can get him to post here) and he said that the warrior epic was upgraded in early Luclin. There is considerable evidence that the original proc was an AC/ATK debuff (I mean, the spell text is 'weakened' which certainly doesn't match a +hate proc).

http://web.archive.org/web/20020827134035/http://www.everlore.com/items/items.asp?IID=250920&mode=show&pg=1&sortby=1

EFFECT: Rage of Vallon ( Target debuffer spell that reduces HP/AC/ATK by 100/40/11 for about a 2min period )

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=2630

Effect: Rage of Vallon DMG 100 ATK -40 AC -35

Rage of Vallon
Decrease Current Hitpoints by 100 (L1)
Lowers you on the target's hate list by 500

as per the spdat.eff file

The point of the proc is to raise hate since warriors had a much harder time to taunt in Kunark post 50. And you're not reading the spdat correctly, for spells that lower you on aggro it says Negative numbers, not positive. For example, Jolt/Cinder Jolt lower your aggro and the spdat says "Lower you on hate list by -500", whereas Rage of Vallon says "Lower you on hate list by 500". It's just bad wording from EqCaster.

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-6905.html


Rage of Zek - 500 (used to have ac debuff)
Rage of Vallon - 500 (used to have ac debuff)

http://www.castle-grounds.co.uk/eq/epiclink.htm


The Proc is Fire based, and the effect reduces the targets AC by 12, as well as providing a magic DD of 175 damage. The AC Debuff lasts 3 minutes.

The Blade of Stategy Proc is also Fire based, and is 100DD as well reducing a Mobs ATK by 40 and their AC by 11 for 2 minutes.

The Blade of Tactics is a right clickable effect, which increases Dex by 40, ATT by 30, and AC by 12. This also lasts 2 minutes.

Conclusion: The information from the last link looks by far the best to me. -40ATK and -11AC makes far more sense then the reverse (40AC is a huge increase in damage). My guess is that the original intent was +hate (as evidenced in the spell file) but they didn't get it implemented in time so they went with the AC debuff.

Most procs (and by extension spells in general) are generating far too much hate

I did the following test with Cucumbers and Coeur (and even Dagorn for a bit). Our method was: Warrior 1 would attack the mob until he procced. Warrior 2 would then attack with nonproccing weapons until the mob turned to face him. We added up the number of primary and secondary attacks, weighted them by damage bonus+weapon damage, and any difference should be the hate value of the proc. Our results:


Warrior A Warrior B APH APD ASH ASD AHATE BPH BPD BSH BSD BHATE Diff Spell Estimate
Epic+Star of the Guardian Dagas+Ixi Sceptre 22 14 21 14 844 46 11 31 15 1477 633 Rage of Vallon 600
Yak Scim+Ixi Sceptre GuardianStar+Epic 14 8 0 15 266 28 14 14 14 896 630 Ykesha 575
Veridix+Ixi Sceptre Dagas+Ixi Sceptre 27 13 16 15 888 56 11 26 15 1622 734 Force Shock 679
SarnakWarhammer+Shield Ixi Sceptre+Epic 84 9 0 0 1680 56 15 37 14 1974 294 Stun 250
Malevolent RB+Ixi Sceptre Dagas+Ixi Sceptre 16 13 9 15 519 47 11 19 15 1319 800 Froglok Poison 750
Yak Scimitar+Shield Ixi Sceptre+Epic 29 8 0 0 551 27 15 31 15 1167 616 Ykesha 575
2x Disease Cloud Dagas+Ixi Sceptre 0 0 0 0 0 39 11 18 15 1128 1128 Disease Cloud 550
2x Shadow Vortex Dagas+Ixi Sceptre 0 0 0 0 0 40 11 16 15 1120 1120 Shadow Vortex 550
SarnakWarhammer+Shield Ixi Sceptre+Epic 10 9 0 0 200 19 15 13 14 676 476 Stun 400

So for example on the first row I had 22 primary hits and 21 secondary hits; Cucumbers had 46 primary hits and 31 secondary hits. The difference in hate was about 600. These values in general seem substantially higher than what is reported on the forums:

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-6905.html

The relative amount of hate that stuns generate was derived from many hours of testing stun agro from pally stun spells (the unknown variable) to SK hate spells (the known constant). I forget who did the testing now, but the evidence was conclusive and can be easily reproduced. They where able to come up with ~450 hate for a stun, which also seems to match the "feel" of a stun proc.

ac debuffs should also be added around 400

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1157&page=2

Slow is second only to Stun for hate spells (that aren't pure hate)

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2057


I would say, from best(top) to worst(bottom)

- Hate (EB, TB, etc)
- Stun
- Slow
- Debuff (-AC, -STR etc)
- Snare (Snare or darkness line)
- Blind
- Lifetap
- DD
- DoT

Conclusion: Based on this I think we should see stun=450, poison counter = 150 per, debuffs 400.

Right now Ykesha stuns seem to be 500, while pure stuns are 400. Poison counters seem to be 225-250 which is extremely high. And debuffs are 550 which again seems much too high. Enchanters and shaman may actually be able to live after slowing something!

Major HT to cucumbers for helping me dig up some links and run the tests.

[spoils]

based on this is the fix (if a fix were to happen) considered an upgrade or a nerf to the already seemingly shitty aggro generation on these swords?

[khanable]

http://web.archive.org/web/20010801160248/http://members.tripod.com/epicquestadventures/Warrior/warrior_epic.htm

Rage of Tallon: +40 Dex, +30 ATK, +12 AC

Rage of Vallon: 100 DD, -40ATK, -11AC



http://web.archive.org/web/20001110153100/http://www.gameznet.com/eq/equipment/bladeofstrategy.html

This item was obtained as part of the warrior epic quest. It is one of the two split byproducts of the two handed Jagged Blade of War. The proc does 100 points of direct damage and lowers your targets ATK by 40 and their AC by 11.

Looks like it was changed somewhere between Jan 2001 and Feb 2001 to a +500 hate -100hp proc.

[spoils]

oh also what about the 2hander proc?

[khanable]

oh also what about the 2hander proc?

Rage of Zek: 175 pt DD, -12 AC

[khanable]

Interesting:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?spell=1933

Checked warrior forums AND

once upon a time the two hate proc's on the epics also had AC debuffs attatched to them. It seems the effect has gone away but the debuff icon spell remains, though it has no detrimental effects.

My current theory is that originally the blade of strategy was an ac/atk debuff and 100dd. Lasted 2 minutes. Blade of tactics was a ac/atk/dex buff that lasted 2 minutes. Blade of war was 175dd and ac debuff.

It got changed at some point (likely cause Furor was a raging mad man). The 2 minute thing remained, though no more debuff and instead a +hate proc. You can see this guys posts in Feb 01 stating the spdat info: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/users/KudaarMubaat#Recent_Posts

[spoils]

lol furor was a badass...gave 0 fucks and openly taunted SoE...

i wonder how they felt about him...he seemed like a force to be reckoned with

[pasi]

Already talked with Loraen about this, but

This is actually a huge buff for the warrior epic proc.

500 Hate + 100 DD = 600 Hate

This is changing to Shadow Vortex + 100 DD + However much threat 40 ATK debuff gives Spells with multiple components give the sum of the threat from each component.

ATK Debuffs are huge for mitigation.

[khanable]

I don't think it should have the +500 hate and debuff component. I think the debuff component was swapped out for the +500 hate component.

So I don't believe it'll be a huge buff..

[spoils]

Already talked with Loraen about this, but

This is actually a huge buff for the warrior epic proc.

500 Hate + 100 DD = 600 Hate

This is changing to Shadow Vortex + 100 DD + However much threat 40 ATK debuff gives Spells with multiple components give the sum of the threat from each component.

ATK Debuffs are huge for mitigation.


is it truly a cumulative of each debuff? or is the ac/atk considered one kind of threat, then the stun etc?

will war epic finally regain bis status as it should be as an epic?

[khanable]

will war epic finally regain bis status as it should be as an epic?

I don't think so. From one of the links above:

The Warriors are also slightly dissapointed with the primary held 1HS, as it at its current ratio, is not as good as currently available weapons (amiditly from places like VP), and cannot keep up the taunt factor that they require

I think it sucked until they made it +500 hate

[pasi]

Pure Hate only became superior due to percentage mods for it.

AC debuffs remain very high aggro. -11 AC is essentially the same as Shadow Vortex which you can look at the numbers for. Add on the 100 DD component. Then, add on an ATK debuff component (don't have the hate numbers for this).

The huge buff would come in the form of debuffing mob ATK by 40. -ATK behaves a lot like undercap AC.

[pasi]

I don't think it's Hate portion will be above anything that's adding a significant amount of poison counters. So, I wouldn't call it absolute BiS from a threat perspective. I don't think it's BiS from a hate perspective even now though.

The benefit comes from the other stats it provides (which with the change will be -20 HP per blade, but plus -40 ATK and the AC debuff).

[khanable]

I see what you're saying now. I interpreted it as they'll see a threat buff.

Though it makes you wonder: why'd they remove the ac/atk debuff? Overpowered?

[Splorf22]

So basically you think the hate value will be roughly the same, and -40ATK is absolutely huge when it lands. I wonder why Vonhammer said it was poor.

[pasi]

An -11 AC component is basically Shadow Vortex which was the aggro spell of choice for SKs once Disease Cloud got gutted. It doesn't have the recourse effect, but buffing is minimal aggro anyways. It's not unreasonable to assume the ATK debuff component will be more aggro than buff recourse anyhow.

I can dig on The Wayback Machine if really needed, but AC debuffs are very good aggro up until PoP (?). And even then, Vanazir was still pretty ok for tanks.

http://thecrossroadstavern8833.yuku.com/topic/5805/SK-advice

The numbers might not mirror live, but even if you use your numbers for shadow vortex and add the DD portion, it's going to still be solid threat.

[khanable]

Hmm. Hard to believe, seems early reports of the epic were pretty bad:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010109070200/http://boards.station.sony.com/everquest/Forum13/HTML/000144.html

The Warrior Particle Weapon has been found (see <http://eq.castersrealm.com/> for the stats, which suck. The two 1h slashers have delay of 24, which makes them utterly useless in group play, as the warrior will NOT be able to taunt mobs away from the other players in the group. The 2h slasher is the best 2h slasher in the game, but that doesn't matter because 2h slash is irrelevant in group play.
The reactions have been amusing. All the lower-level warriors are drooling over the stats, and all the warriors high enough to do the quest are majorly POed because they understand the stats make the weapon useless.

I'm just starting to think hate generation worked very differently back then -- their big complaint was the 24 delay..

[Arteker]

Hmm. Hard to believe, seems early reports of the epic were pretty bad:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010109070200/http://boards.station.sony.com/everquest/Forum13/HTML/000144.html



I'm just starting to think hate generation worked very differently back then -- their big complaint was the 24 delay..

hi hi. i will make a comment if u guys dont mind. if u guys played a war in velious , and didint joined a uber guild (wich i was in magna charta solusek ro server).

what was the most easiest best solid agro weapon for a warrior?.

the answer and maybe u guys remember it was:

Frostbringer


why? because the debuff+dd it have nothing much else .

/bow to loraen u in the good way.if need some help just contact me in game, english is so bad than i fear forum gramma nazys into a serius subject like this.

[pasi]

Yes, I'm not arguing people's opinions of the weapon. The 30/30/60 stats are terrible compared to other epics stats. In addition, a delay of 24 was awful for threat on live. On here, people don't seem to use tanking weapons without procs; whereas 2x Lamentation held aggro pretty well on live. From a design standpoint, it is a disappointing epic.

It get's difficult because I don't know the server's code. I don't know what code is residual that just hasn't been noticed. For example, proced stuns eventually (stealth added) got a 400 hate cap on live for their stun component. Casted spells did not have this cap. Some spells created more hate if they were a class that could cast them. There are exceptions to this rule like Static Blow. There's a ton of random shit like this that you run into when you're trying to figure out threat. Even worse, we don't know when a lot of this stuff was even added to the code. Worst yet, this server is designed to mimic Kunark on live (and does a fucking awesome job of doing such).

If you're bored, take a look at this: http://giline.versus.jp/shiden/stun_e.htm

Now, that's kind of a tangent.

What I am arguing is the proc's aggro from a basic mechanics standpoint. If the proc is indeed 100 DD and -11 AC, it is going to give the threat of those 2 components (from what I've read/experienced, ATK debuffs aren't much threat). This really isn't saying much. I can link you dozens of threads that will tell you AC debuffs are fantastic aggro.

Or do you believe that this weapon is the lone example in the history of the game of a proc with an AC debuff that wasn't large aggro?

[Splorf22]

I'm just starting to think hate generation worked very differently back then -- their big complaint was the 24 delay..

Lets look at primary weapons and divide their melee hate per swing by their delay:

Feverblade: 11+11 = 22/20 = 1.11
Jade Mace: 9+11 = 20/18 = 1.11
Howling Cutlass: 10+11 = 21/19 = 1.10
Lamentation: 9+11 = 20/19 = 1.05
Epic: 14+11 = 25/24 = 1.05
Sarnak Warhammer: 9+11/20 = 1.00

So from a melee hate perspective the epic is quite mediocre. That is what the post is complaining about. Couple that with the fact that the blue sword doesn't have an aggro proc, and a warrior using the epic for group tanking is going to be way behind a warrior using two proccing VP weapons. Even for raiding aggro was more important without the midnight mallet.

Meanwhile on P1999, we have had a ton of overpowered bosses that needed insane HP (Bee, quadding Hoshkar, etc) and mallet charges to make aggro irrelevant. So the stats on the epic meant more than pure hate/sec. And even here I think the blue epic is still worthless, which is why I'm trying to get a Sword of the Shissar. As a warrior you simply cannot afford to give up 1/3 of your aggro procs. It's just not a good idea.

And finally, I'm guessing that in Kunark they weren't quite up to speed on parsing and realizing just how good a -40ATK debuff should be. As Maurice told me earlier, Verant introduced ATK debuffs in Luclin, and they were so good that they were never upgraded over something like 10 years.

Also Arteker don't worry about your english. Take Lanzellot as your model!

[Arteker]

Lets look at primary weapons and divide their melee hate per swing by their delay:

Feverblade: 11+11 = 22/20 = 1.11
Jade Mace: 9+11 = 20/18 = 1.11
Howling Cutlass: 10+11 = 21/19 = 1.10
Lamentation: 9+11 = 20/19 = 1.05
Epic: 14+11 = 25/24 = 1.05
Sarnak Warhammer: 9+11/20 = 1.00

So from a melee hate perspective the epic is quite mediocre. That is what the post is complaining about. Couple that with the fact that the blue sword doesn't have an aggro proc, and a warrior using the epic for group tanking is going to be way behind a warrior using two proccing VP weapons. Even for raiding aggro was more important without the midnight mallet.

Meanwhile on P1999, we have had a ton of overpowered bosses that needed insane HP (Bee, quadding Hoshkar, etc) and mallet charges to make aggro irrelevant. So the stats on the epic meant more than pure hate/sec. And even here I think the blue epic is still worthless, which is why I'm trying to get a Sword of the Shissar. As a warrior you simply cannot afford to give up 1/3 of your aggro procs. It's just not a good idea.

And finally, I'm guessing that in Kunark they weren't quite up to speed on parsing and realizing just how good a -40ATK debuff should be. As Maurice told me earlier, Verant introduced ATK debuffs in Luclin, and they were so good that they were never upgraded over something like 10 years.

Also Arteker don't worry about your english. Take Lanzellot as your model!

u guys forgot aswell one factor of agro was a solid mele dps, was main reason monks could tank quite well.and by tank i mean having a solid agro.

debuffs where hugue agro wich in this server doesnt work same level as it did live.

u gotta chek how powerfull agro was the tiny ranger spell called flamelick wich combine with a snare was a very very very solid agro , here that spell isnt as good as was live because debuffs such cripple dont generate same agro.

[pasi]

And finally, I'm guessing that in Kunark they weren't quite up to speed on parsing and realizing just how good a -40ATK debuff should be. As Maurice told me earlier, Verant introduced ATK debuffs in Luclin, and they were so good that they were never upgraded over something like 10 years.


I missed the druid ATK debuff which actually did receive upgrades. I know the SK one didn't receive an upgrade despite us asking for it every expansion.

ATK Debuffs function very much like pre-cap AC. Again with the 'I don't know the mechanics here', but until mid-Velious or so AC was hardcapped on live. So, ATK debuffs can be a huge fucking deal.

Refer to this page on Atk Debuffs http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13652&page=8


Err, that's 18.6% damage reduced by full druid [ATK] debuffs.

It'd take more than thousands of AC to replicate that kind of effect. It'd probably take thousands of AC just to replicate half of that effect.


Even in my TM parses, -100 attack (not even 190, just 100) dropped the overall dps of the mob by 9% during the duration of the parse (500 ihts, 13 minutes).

Keep in mind this is -255 ATK on mobs with a lot more ATK than Kunark mobs. -40 ATK on Kunark/Velious mobs is very large.

Quoting the AC Hardcap (different from above link on ATK debuffs)

Kavhok
EQ Designer
Posts: 14

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

Let me give a more full explanation of what happened, though. Here's how the AC formula used to work before the patch immediately preceding PoP:

The AC from your items was added up, but the value used for it was hard capped based on your level. This was the same for all classes. Once you had 289 raw AC from items (or 385 as a cloth class, since they get less effect from item AC), that was it. More AC from items wouldn't do anything.

After this, it added your class bonuses (including the monk bonus, which is equivalent to your level + 5 in raw item AC), defense skill bonus, agility bonus, and the AC from spell buffs.

Total AC at this point was capped again, this time based on class. In the Kunark-era code, this was a hard cap, but sometime during Velious it was changed to a soft cap for melee classes only. The return was fairly small, though.

[khanable]

Or do you believe that this weapon is the lone example in the history of the game of a proc with an AC debuff that wasn't large aggro?

No, I agree that 100dd and -11ac should be good aggro.

I just don't get that people complained about the weapon not being good -- enough that it was eventually (or so it appears) change to just a simple +500hate 100dd.

Not trying to disagree with anyone here, just raising questions.

I just don't get the time line of the events and what people felt was so bad about it compared to other things.

Edit: The way I'm seeing it is the epic originally had less HP, 100dd, an AC and ATK debuff. From what we know about aggro right now -- the sheer amount of hate generated shouldn't be substantially different in any direction -- but the -40ATK will be pretty damn nice.

Old warriors, for some reason, complained about this until it was fixed to 500hate and 100dd.

What was bad about the original weapon, and what was better about the new weapon?

Perhaps the debuff portion can be resisted, giving no +aggro? Just throwing ideas out.

[Arteker]

No, I agree that 100dd and -11ac should be good aggro.

I just don't get that people complained about the weapon not being good -- enough that it was eventually (or so it appears) change to just a simple +500hate 100dd.

Not trying to disagree with anyone here, just raising questions.

I just don't get the time line of the events and what people felt was so bad about it compared to other things.

the answer to hit lies in veridrix short sword and veldrak shorts swords and shishar swords.

like it happened in velious dd+stun mechanic ranked way better for agro purpose ,infact the great deal with such agro was the fact a stun wich didint land or worked would even generate more agro than one wich landed.


to put a example , when paladins got their small fast cast stuns wich got resisted by low lvl mobs it was a a massive and massive agro tool wich screwed out warriors big time.im talking about cease and desist low lvl stun

it was a hugue debate in test server and main reason pure agro procs where added and later refined.

when it wasnt even enough to give a boost to wars agro over paladin stuns and sks terror and torrent line they launched the big nerf in stun agro.

wich for land for full agro needed to land, was main reason anger procs made enragin blow obsolete since the stun component+ agro mod would work always unlike most paladins stuns.

[Splorf22]

I'm pretty sure I answered precisely that question: that the melee hate of the epic is quite medicore, that they cared more about the hate than the stats, and that they probably didn't realize (because they weren't parsing) how good -40ATK really was. Based on what Pasi quoted for the relatively low-atk mobs we are seeing it should be something like a 10% damage reduction.

The warrior epic would be so much better if both the swords were 12/20 and the blue one increased the proc rate of the mainhand by 50%. Together those changes increase the hate of the epic by 25% or so. Even a 13/20 epic isn't that outrageous; that would basically make the epic a willsapper clone.

[pasi]

No, I agree that 100dd and -11ac should be good aggro.

I just don't get that people complained about the weapon not being good -- enough that it was eventually (or so it appears) change to just a simple +500hate 100dd.

Not trying to disagree with anyone here, just raising questions.

I just don't get the time line of the events and what people felt was so bad about it compared to other things.

Edit: The way I'm seeing it is the epic originally had less HP, 100dd, an AC and ATK debuff. From what we know about aggro right now -- the sheer amount of hate generated shouldn't be substantially different in any direction -- but the -40ATK will be pretty damn nice.

Old warriors, for some reason, complained about this until it was fixed to 500hate and 100dd.

What was bad about the original weapon, and what was better about the new weapon?

Perhaps the debuff portion can be resisted, giving no +aggro? Just throwing ideas out.

Honestly, you got me there. Maybe it was just what the epic could have been?

I'd probably go with that the classic-GoD EQ warrior community was probably the whiniest MMO community I've ever experienced (and I'm saying that as a contributor to TSW).

[Arteker]

I'm pretty sure I answered precisely that question: that the melee hate of the epic is quite medicore, that they cared more about the hate than the stats, and that they probably didn't realize (because they weren't parsing) how good -40ATK really was. Based on what Pasi quoted for the relatively low-atk mobs we are seeing it should be something like a 10% damage reduction.

The warrior epic would be so much better if both the swords were 12/20 and the blue one increased the proc rate of the mainhand by 50%. Together those changes increase the hate of the epic by 25% or so. Even a 13/20 epic isn't that outrageous; that would basically make the epic a willsapper clone.

wisch isnt a joke , willsapper himself was just ranked behind sods in terms of agro. was the holy grial of any non war with acces to st armory.

again if you need more info there was a old post about the paladin epic fiery defender being the crapiest of epics in ratio but having the best of all the agro procs from the tank class. was quoted in several forums even safehouse i think used to have .
paladin epic procs holy shock a dd+stun wich can easily snap agro at early figths , usualy isnt a problem when war have a solid agro hold in a mob but back in the day many and i mean lots of paladins died in raids because they proc the damm thing to much.

i had to buy a sword of rile with dkp because the damm epic killed me alot of times in raid when it would proc few fast times and mob would turn and killl me .

[Arteker]

Honestly, you got me there. Maybe it was just what the epic could have been?

I'd probably go with that the classic-GoD EQ warrior community was probably the whiniest MMO community I've ever experienced (and I'm saying that as a contributor to TSW).

ah yes man i still remember the uproar when stupid guildy posted a video of quarm tanking paladin and innoruck ct in pot.


that silly fag of kreugen backed always furor in hybrid hate .

[pasi]

wisch isnt a joke , willsapper himself was just ranked behind sods in terms of agro. was the holy grial of any non war with acces to st armory.


Willsapper is great since it's 20 delay, and I plan on grabbing one to go with the Red Blade for my warrior, but I think some of the VP weapons will beat it out aggro-wise.

I posted this before, but cntrl +F energy sap here:
http://giline.versus.jp/shiden/stun_e.htm


Against Exterminator Wintloag (lv30), Energy Sap increases Hate by range 336.33 to 344.00.

Against Exterminator Wintloag (lv30), Energy Sap increases Hate by range 338.00 to 342.33.

Against Captain Stonefist (lv65), Energy Sap increases Hate by range 398.00 to 407.00.

[khanable]

Some talk about the debuff

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-3362.html
http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-878.html

[Arteker]

Some talk about the debuff

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-3362.html
http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-878.html

hahahah you found it ,p man make me feel old when i see brother posts from 2003.

[spoils]

sadface epics aren't as epic as they should be ='(

[khanable]

Higher hate values might be right

from a feb 21,2001 patch:

*NPC AI - Hate*

We've made a number of changes to NPC AI, specifically to the section
dealing with target-selection, or what's commonly referred to as "Hate". It
is not so much that NPCs react differently to hate now than before, but that
we've changed the way that hate is awarded.

--- We reduced the amount of hate that can be caused by a proc. Due to the
high proc rates at upper levels, the amount of hate generated from procs,
and the spells that were selected for those procs, made keeping the
attention of the creature much too easy a task for the tank. Simply, it
nearly eliminated the challenge of keeping a foes attention at levels above
50.

--- We've capped the amount of hate that can be awarded to most casters,
specifically for debuff-type spells like the Malo and Tash series. The hate
calculation for these spells takes into account the number of hitpoints of
the NPC and did not "play nice" with the increased HP limit of Velious. It
explains why Enchanters, for instance, would complain that casting a Tash
spell would lead to near-instant death.

--- We've redressed the amount of hate generated by heal spells.
Previously, and *partly* due to a bug, the high level heal spells such as
superior heal or complete heal would generate no more hate than greater
heal. In fact, so little hate was generated by these spells that it made
controlling NPC aggression trivial. Heal spells will now generate an amount
of hate more in line with the number of hitpoints actually healed. Due to
our desire to leave the lower level game more or less untouched, two
separate caps have been placed for targets level 50 or below, and 51 or
above. Heal spells will generate significantly less hate for targets below
level 51 than those at or above that level.

--- We've also re-evaluated ways that players have to reduce their own hate.
While spells in place to allow this are OK, the Evade skill (possessed by
rogues) let them out of their damage too easily. A rogue that successfully
evaded would immediately drop to a level of hate lower than someone who was
in the awareness range, but hadn't done anything to really upset the
creature such as damage it or heal its foe. This problem was exacerbated by
the increase of the size of the hate list implemented with Velious.

Perhaps something interesting to note is this:

We've capped the amount of hate that can be awarded to most casters,
specifically for debuff-type spells like the Malo and Tash series. The hate
calculation for these spells takes into account the number of hitpoints of
the NPC and did not "play nice" with the increased HP limit of Velious. It
explains why Enchanters, for instance, would complain that casting a Tash
spell would lead to near-instant death.

Maybe debuff style spells took into account the mobs HP, which is why warriors felt the epic was shit for group play (lower hp mobs generating lower hate, along with the high delay). Adding a cap to casters, they still had the issue of the warrior epic being overpowered as fuck on high HP mobs, so they nerf it down to a static amount of +hate.

OR the cap affected weapon procs as well (makes more sense tbh), but the cap was considered fairly low and they changed out the warrior epic to have +hate.

Mind you this patch comes out a few days prior to someone posting the spdat.eff data to allakhazam reflecting a +hate on the warrior epic proc.

Thoughts?

[Splorf22]

I remember reading that before but I'd forgotten about it until recently. It's a really good find.

Putting hate proportional to HP is one of those brilliant CS type ideas that doesn't quite work out owing to the ridiculous scaling of endgame HP. Suppose you pick aggro = hp/10. This is quite reasonable for a sonic bat (200 hate) but already causing problems with a krup knight (850 hate) and totally stupid for a dragon (3200 hate).

However, if debuff hate really worked that way, then the warrior epic would be super-wtf-OP. One proc on a god mob and voila, 3000+ hate (5 normal procs based on what we measured).

[khanable]

If they actually did 100*log(hp) it wouldn't have been all that bad =p

but who the hell knows what they did. obviously they did something dumb, since they had to go change it to stop casters from getting insta-ganked.

[spoils]

All your findings could completely change the entire game...wonder if devs are gonna wanna do that

[Nirgon]

Initial aggro is the big one, and pet classes complain about it a lot.

On EQC (I don't have the research we put forth in front of me) it was determined there was a maximum amount of threat a spell could cause if it was the first spell you cast on the NPC. That was in turn implemented based on those findings, wherever they are.

I haven't even gotten to killing guards on live because I am in the laziest of summer slumps.

Willsapper was an absolutely CHOICE weapon for Velious wars. Hell, anyone who could use it.

[khanable]

Initial aggro is the big one, and pet classes complain about it a lot.

On EQC (I don't have the research we put forth in front of me) it was determined there was a maximum amount of threat a spell could cause if it was the first spell you cast on the NPC. That was in turn implemented based on those findings, wherever they are.

I haven't even gotten to killing guards on live because I am in the laziest of summer slumps.

Willsapper was an absolutely CHOICE weapon for Velious wars. Hell, anyone who could use it.

Was it just myth that warriors couldn't triple attack with piercing weapons?

[webrunner5]

Wasn't the Warrior the very first Epic the Dev's developed? And I always thought Root was pretty high up the Agro ladder.

[Arteker]

Wasn't the Warrior the very first Epic the Dev's developed? And I always thought Root was pretty high up the Agro ladder.

i u understand epic as epic quest or particle weapon, paladin.

[Juevento]

Y'all have way to much time on your hands.

Go spend this energy solving world hunger not trying to get peoples stuff nerfed.

[khanable]

Shits classic dawg

Ele please halp make shit classic

[kaev]

Wasn't the Warrior the very first Epic the Dev's developed? And I always thought Root was pretty high up the Agro ladder.

First epic was Fiery Avenger, which was near universally dissed as a bank trophy (the Paladins who completed the quest early had better gear.) After judging reaction to that, they came out with epics for everybody, including the Fiery Defender as upgrade to FA.

OnTopic: Root isn't much agro for the spells themselves, but it's pretty useful for agro control when you can stick it reliably because rooted mobs choose melee target based strictly on proximity.

[koros]

No way Kaev.

33/44 with dd proc and stats PRE-Kunark?

It was the best anyone had seen up to that point, except maybe if you won the Butcherblock hammer.

[Nirgon]

2handers were terrible pre Velious. Here they are not.

I hate this debate!!


Go spend this energy solving world hunger not trying to get peoples stuff nerfed.

You realize you can only give those people food for free and when you stop giving, they start having the problem again. If there was a "fix", I'm sure it would have been taken care of by now.

Not to mention? EQ is worth saving bro. We here stand boldly against the waves of WoW clones and The Lion King: VoxelQuest, working to ensure a true classic EQ server may some day exist again.

[spoils]

Y'all have way to much time on your hands.

Go spend this energy solving world hunger not trying to get peoples stuff nerfed.

this analogous to exploiting without knowing you're exploiting...bottom line is...you're exploiting...but we all know he's gonna read my comment and be like "wtf i don't exploit"...

anyways...

the research regarding this could be pretty damn revolutionary for the server...i wonder how big of a task it would be to rework aggro mechanics to pre-revamp? I'm hoping it's just one blanket code, but we all know with how ancient that code is...it's probably huge

[Ele]

Shits classic dawg

Ele please halp make shit classic

What exactly needs more evidence the proc on warrior red blade or just aggro generation over all?

[Splorf22]

I think we have very good evidence already for the warrior proc, although Nilbog is avoiding my bug threads like usual.

The problem is all the posts I found on the Steel Warrior regarding aggro are from like 2003, so after that aggro change that Cucumbers found. I think it's quite likely that all debuffs should be base+mob-hp/X where x is some constant, probably around 10. This would, though, in my opinion be pretty unbalancing.

[spoils]

i'm ok with GM's saying "fuck that...too much work/unbalanced/etc" so the warriors and wannabe-epic holders like myself can say fuck it with the epic and focus on getting VP procs instead of spending 500k on a scale and other pieces...

[khanable]

What exactly needs more evidence the proc on warrior red blade or just aggro generation over all?

I think if we can try to find typical hate generation for a debuff prior to Feb 21st 2001 we'd be in great shape.

I too agree the hate generation for debuffs is probably base+maxhp/x

I believe x to be around 100, though -- so look at it like this

sonic bat hp: 2000, adds 20 hate to base
krup knight hp: 8500, adds 85 hate to base
nagafen hp: 32000, adds 320 hate to base

so if base was say, 200, we'd have 220 hate for debuffing a bat, 285 hate for debuffing a krup knight, and 520 hate for debuffing nagafen

And this is where shit went bad:

velious boss hp: 600,000, adds 6,000 hate to base

which would be a totally dead debuffer

Thoughts?

[spoils]

we can theorize numbers for "the magic x" but without concrete evidence, I am 99.9999% sure GM's won't even begin to work on any code relating that due to the huge ramifications...

but i like what i'm seeing and it makes sense

[kaev]

No way Kaev.

33/44 with dd proc and stats PRE-Kunark?

It was the best anyone had seen up to that point, except maybe if you won the Butcherblock hammer.

Original (probably long-lost) Paladins of Norrath forum (not the EZBoard) had a thoughtful "open-letter" to the EQ devs, iirc it was posted by the FOH Paladin lead (Kruegan?), explaining how FA compared to equipment then available to the high-end Paladins who raced to be the first to complete the quest. Inferior HP, AC, & Resists to a quality 1h+shield were not made up for by improving Paladin damage output from very weak to still very weak, because, :shock: damage output has nothing to do with tanking. Also, the proc had little agro so no real help when tanking (tho not everybody commenting wanted an agro proc.)

A lot of the Paladins that were not in the guilds dominating high-end content thought it was pretty neat.

Also, my memory ain't what it used to be, but iirc FA quest came out AFTER Kunark release.

[koros]

FA was certainly before by a couple months. It was a lot better than any 1h/shield combo or other two handed that existed Pre-Kunark...

If anything it was probably a letter posted after Kunark, because it wasn't that hot compared to easy Kunark weaponry.

[spoils]

Stay on topic please

[Splorf22]

I think if we can try to find typical hate generation for a debuff prior to Feb 21st 2001 we'd be in great shape.

I too agree the hate generation for debuffs is probably base+maxhp/x

I believe x to be around 100, though -- so look at it like this

sonic bat hp: 2000, adds 20 hate to base
krup knight hp: 8500, adds 85 hate to base
nagafen hp: 32000, adds 320 hate to base

so if base was say, 200, we'd have 220 hate for debuffing a bat, 285 hate for debuffing a krup knight, and 520 hate for debuffing nagafen

And this is where shit went bad:

velious boss hp: 600,000, adds 6,000 hate to base

which would be a totally dead debuffer

Thoughts?

200 is way too high for a constant base.

How about this: 8*player-level+mob-hp/100

L20 shaman slowing Ambassador Dvinn: 166 hate
L40 shaman slowing sonic bat: 340 hate
L60 shaman slowing krup knight: 550 hate
L60 shaman slowing Cazic Thule: 800 hate

For all I know that's the actual way Nilbog implemented it; those results would be more or less consistent with our tests.

Or maybe a 7x multiplier for debuffs and an 8x multiplier for stuns, since those are supposed to be a little better. That would also mesh well with the data.

[koros]

That sounds potentially accurate, I was playing around with various methods of doing log(level*hp)*constant, but it doesn't scale enough unless you add in an exponent.

[khanable]

just some findings.. I'll post these randomly as I find 'em


https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/alt.games.everquest/tash$20aggro/alt.games.everquest/7H0kxLfiMNo/pCaD5wapWgAJ

old newsgroup posting from feb 25, 2001:

When did they add a re-cast time? I haven't played my wizard much for the
past month, but at that time I didn't notice any re-cast time. I think they
just lowered the aggro of the spell, as they did with tash, as a result of
it taunting too much and being used for unplanned things (warrior dual
wielding tash sticks can't lose the attention of his target, wizard spamming
flux on a HG can't lose the attention as the rest of his groups kites in
ease).

So debuff aggro was stupid high on spells and weapons, then. (I guess this is evidence that we can say it was definitely happening with weapons)

[Splorf22]

So all of the straight up numerical values that I posted in the OP are probably the caps Verant put in place after this patch.

The question is really how much of Verant's bad game design do we really want to replicate.

[khanable]

The question is really how much of Verant's bad game design do we really want to replicate.

All of it! :D

[Nirgon]

Tash was def rather high aggro

[Naerron]

Would also like to point this website out from my old server Povar where Triton was getting their epics and posting them. They lsit the proc as the OP had suggested it was.


http://epicquestadventures.tripod.com/Warrior/warrior_epic.htm

[CodyF86]

Would also like to point this website out from my old server Povar where Triton was getting their epics and posting them. They lsit the proc as the OP had suggested it was.


http://epicquestadventures.tripod.com/Warrior/warrior_epic.htm

From the link you posted.

"There is also a mob in The Hole named Nortlav the Scalekeeper. He is a level 51-55 Erudite that drops the Red Dragon Scale and the Green Dragon Scale for the Warrior Epic."

He should drop the green scale too?

[Bummey]

From the link you posted.

"There is also a mob in The Hole named Nortlav the Scalekeeper. He is a level 51-55 Erudite that drops the Red Dragon Scale and the Green Dragon Scale for the Warrior Epic."

He should drop the green scale too?


https://web.archive.org/web/20010702152752/http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com:80/search.shtml?id=6364

Green and white are listed, but comments say only red.

[Pringles]

If you go out to 2002 on the archive no one has seen anything but a red scale actually drop from comments. It also removes them from his drop table early 2002. There is one lone dude saying he drops green in june 2001 but the other evidence is overwhelming.