Pacify duration incorrect for timeline

[Dildy]

I have recently discovered that the spell 'Pacify' is using the incorrect duration for our timeline. Currently it lasts for 7 ticks, however, it should last ~7minutes.

2003-01-09 11:57 Changed Durationtext from 4.9 mins @L39 to 7.5 mins @L65 to 7 ticks

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spellhistory.html?id=45&source=Live



Artelius Lightweaver 60 PAL <Auld Lang Syne>

[Treats]

Calm
Change Frenzy Radius to 5 feet
Change Reaction Radius to 5 feet
Lower Aggression


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Classes: Clr (L19), Pal (L49), Enc (L20)

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Skill: Alteration
Allowable Targets: All

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Range to Target: 200 feet

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Resistance Check: Magic + 25

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Mana Required: 50
Spell Duration: 30 ticks (3.0 minutes)
Duration Formula: 8
Casting Time: 2.50 seconds
Spell Recovery: 2.25 seconds
Recast Delay: 5.0 seconds

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Spell cast on you: You feel your aggression subside.
Spell cast on someone: Soandso looks less aggressive.


Pacify
Change Frenzy Radius to 1 feet
Change Reaction Radius to 1 feet
Lower Aggression


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Classes: Clr (L39), Pal (L51), Enc (L39)

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Skill: Alteration
Allowable Targets: All

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Range to Target: 200 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Resistance Check: Magic + 15

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mana Required: 100
Spell Duration: Unknown
Duration Formula: 8
Casting Time: 3.0 seconds
Spell Recovery: 2.25 seconds
Recast Delay: 6.0 seconds

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spell cast on you: You feel your aggression subside.
Spell cast on someone: Soandso looks less aggressive.

[bomaroast]

I always thought it was funny that calm lasts for 2+ minutes and the next lull spell up the line lats for 7 ticks.

[Brocode]

I always thought it was funny that calm lasts for 2+ minutes and the next lull spell up the line lats for 7 ticks.

same, why always used calm instead.

[Telin]

Fixed, pending update.

[Nuggie]

... this is going to be huge.

Excellent sluething OP!

[Isey]

Complete noob, but does update mean next download? Or are there regular server side updates?

(I've been soloing in an area that would love a 7 min lull...)

[Isey]

Also - wake of tranquilty also has a Pacify effect so assuming that it will also be bumped to 7 minutes?

[loramin]

Complete noob, but does update mean next download? Or are there regular server side updates?

(I've been soloing in an area that would love a 7 min lull...)

Generally speaking the staff releases server-side fixes that require client updates in tandem with fixes that don't. In other words, usually yes, you'll have to wait for the next downloadable patch file to appear before this will be in the game.

But since this fix could be made without changing anyone's client, in theory it could happen sooner ... I just wouldn't expect it. You have to keep in mind that for developers every "release" has a cost, so they generally don't make unnecessary releases unless there is a pressing reason (and since this has gone unfixed for ten years, it's sort of the opposite of "pressing").

[Isey]

Generally speaking the staff releases server-side fixes that require client updates in tandem with fixes that don't. In other words, usually yes, you'll have to wait for the next downloadable patch file to appear before this will be in the game.

But since this fix could be made without changing anyone's client, in theory it could happen sooner ... I just wouldn't expect it. You have to keep in mind that for developers every "release" has a cost, so they generally don't make unnecessary releases unless there is a pressing reason (and since this has gone unfixed for ten years, it's sort of the opposite of "pressing").

Makes perfect sense and thank you for taking the time to explain.

[Zuranthium]

I have recently discovered that the spell 'Pacify' is using the incorrect duration for our timeline.

2003-01-09 Changed Durationtext from 4.9 mins @L39 to 7.5 mins @L65 to 7 ticks http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spellhistory.html?id=45&source=Live

Fixed, pending update.

This is completely ridiculous. You made a huge UN-CLASSIC change to the spell because of one single data point from 2003???

Here is the actual info from in-era: https://web.archive.org/web/20010725174310/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spell.asp?Id=115 - The spell lasted 2 minutes.

Even more importantly, look at the numerous posts about the success rate of Lull spells from the era, including this very specific post - https://web.archive.org/web/20010823021158/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spell.asp?Id=65

"As a 34 enchanter with 170+ Charisma I recently tried to Calm some frogloks in upper guk.
These were low blues and greens around 10 or more levels below me but 10-15% of the time I'd cast Calm
they'd resist and go aggro on me and pull the whole room. After many attempts and a number of deaths
I came to the final conclusion that casting Calm is a pretty good way of rolling for a death sentence.

Better to Mez, root, charm etc. The Lull series fails a good portion of the time and about 1 in 6 to 1 in 8 it causes them to go aggro.
Druid and Ranger Harmony works Awesome, and is always the preferred method of aggro reduction.

It's very disappointed that enchanters don't get harmony but are stuck with this dreadful clerical line of aggro reduction."

Lull spells on P99 are absolutely not classic.

[Dolalin]

Pacify has an empty duration in the in-era spdats. It's quite odd. Lull does not.

In fact, from the castersrealm link above, 2nd page comment:


DOES THIS SPELL WORK?, By Bubba the enchanter (1/28/2001)

I have Tried this spell Numerous times on Dwarves in BB, (the two near the Dock) and have had 0, zip, nill, Nada luck with it. I have Casted it on myself (resisted 9/10 times and it seems to last about 2 sec) So I ask, Does this spell work?


Was Pacify simply broken in-era with a zero duration?

[Dolalin]

I've found evidence that 7mins is not the correct duration. It was an out-of-era break that persisted for awhile (months) but was eventually fixed:


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From: "Richard Lawson" <nouma@msn.com>
Newsgroups: alt.games.everquest
Subject: Re: Nerf to Pacify
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 13:36:38 -0800
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"Robin Russell" wrote:
> Does anyone have and real info on the nerf to pacify.
> Was it intentional? What are the new limitations? etc..

Pacify wasn't nerfed. It was broken - broken for months. It started as a
spell of 42-second duration, then somehow had its duration increased to five
minutes. Finally, SOE got around to fixing that, and now it's back down to
its original, intended 42-second duration.

It's had practically no effect on me, because I never assumed the duration
would ever be longer than 42 seconds. I never took advantage of the
unintended extended duration because I didn't want to become dependent on
it. And I knew it would eventually be fixed. I'm surprised it took them as
long as it did to fix it.

During all my play sessions that I was using Pacification, I always recast
it every half-minute. I was never sure if the bug was fixed because I never
tried testing it - I always relied on its intended duration.

It's really too bad SOE took as long as they did to fix the Lull line, as
many people did, in fact, become dependent upon it. I wish they'd fix
things faster; I missed Poofy the cleric pet for a long time.

Anyway, to make a long story short (too late!), Pacify wasn't nerfed. It
was just fixed to only run as long as the spell description listed.

-Richard


https://dbsanfte.github.io/eq-archives/newsgroups/alt.games.everquest-msg-229357.txt

I am not sure if Pacify was totally broken in-era or there is some other weirdness going on with the spdat, I am not an expert in spdats :D But based on the above, the duration change should be reverted back to 7 ticks until we determine anything else.

[Zuranthium]

Interesting thing about that quote - it's more evidence of the entire Lull mechanic being highly unreliable during classic: "It's really too bad SOE took as long as they did to fix the Lull line". There are mountains of posts out there talking about how bad Lulls were. Posts from post-Classic era also specifically talk about Lull spells being improved (see link below).

As for the duration, Casters Realm spell lists were taken by scraping server data, and Geoffrey Zatkin (EQ's spell designer) confirmed they were accurate. Every other spell on Casters Realm is listed accurately. If it says Pacify was a 2 min duration in era, that's very likely correct. Also, the person who built Casters Realm was an Enchanter. The duration of Pacify is still listed as 2 minutes in 2002 and then changed to 42 seconds as of May 2003 - https://web.archive.org/web/20030508050847/http://eq.crgaming.com:80/spells/spell.asp?Id=115

So there's a clear timeline: Lull spells were much less powerful before Luclin era, but Pacify had a 2 minute duration when it worked. Sometime during 2002, Lull spells were improved. Then during the first half of 2003, Pacify's duration was changed to 42 seconds (presumably because it was considered overpowered now that the Lull line was buffed). Then at some point later in 2003 the spell was bugged to have the 7 minute duration, and got changed back to 42 seconds.

[Wakanda]

I know pacify is pretty op because I pack stuff with my cleric and then log on my shaman to safely pull it several minutes later ��

[zelld52]

Pacify had a very short duration during Gates of Discord - i played enchanter then and it only lasted 2 minutes

[Wakanda]

I know pacify is pretty op because I paci stuff with my cleric and then log on my shaman to safely pull it several minutes later ��

[bivouac]

I was surprised to see this change to 2 minutes go live without the usual "fixed, pending update". The Caster's Realm evidence seemed pretty dodgy to me when I read the thread a few months back. Here I'll present some counter evidence to hopefully show 7 minutes was the correct max duration in era.

Dolalin's spdat archive (https://github.com/dbsanfte/eq-archives/tree/master/spdat), especially the Historical spreadsheet, is my main source for these screenshots. The eqemu buff duration formula page (https://docs.eqemu.io/server/spells/buff-duration-formulas/) is also helpful to find the correct calculation for a particular formula.

Here's the history of Pacify for the trilogy era. Only a Resist Adj change was made some time before Kunark. The duration and its formula weren't touched.
https://i.imgur.com/IFd7uLR.png

Looking at the eqemu docs, Pacify is duration formula 8, which we see is "Lowest of (Level + 10) or Duration" in ticks. A zero in duration is ignored and only limits duration by the player's level. Therefore, Pacify should range from 49 ticks at lvl 39 to 70 ticks at lvl 60.

Calm, on the other hand, has Duration 30, limiting it to 3 minutes for anyone above lvl 19:
https://i.imgur.com/RrG16UL.png

Here are the other spells with the same duration/formula combo as Pacify for comparison:
https://i.imgur.com/FVus8iN.png

To refute the Caster's Realm duration from Zuranthium's earlier post, let's compare the max durations they have listed on some of the other spells using the same formula:
Feral Spirit: Instant (https://web.archive.org/web/20010527013902/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spell.asp?Id=919)
Savage Spirit: 15 minutes (https://web.archive.org/web/20010527011939/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spell.asp?Id=927)
Aegis of Ro: Instant (https://web.archive.org/web/20011223091534/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spell.asp?Id=356)
Cadeau of Flame: 6 minutes (https://web.archive.org/web/20010609084417/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spell.asp?Id=350)
Bedlam: 8 minutes (https://web.archive.org/web/20010725175200/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spell.asp?Id=191)
Cripple: 20 minutes (https://web.archive.org/web/20010725174652/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spell.asp?Id=173)

All of these are up to 7 minute buffs/debuffs in the spdats and on p99. I'd argue the Caster's Realm guys didn't know the calculation for this type of spell duration or posted some unverified community info. I admit there's a spdat blind spot from Aug '01 to Mar '02, where the Lucy spell history (https://lucy.allakhazam.com/spellhistory.html?id=45&source=Live) picks up, but it really doesn't look like they touched the max duration until Jan '03.

[spoil]

Nice work bivouac. :cool:

[funry]

Kind of strange to make such a negative QoL change based on some unconfirmed single reference.

REEEEEEE

Change it back please and thanks.

[jungels]

This is completely ridiculous. You made a huge UN-CLASSIC change to the spell because of one single data point from 2003???

Here is the actual info from in-era: https://web.archive.org/web/20010725174310/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spell.asp?Id=115 - The spell lasted 2 minutes.

I'm sorry but castersrealm was widely known to not be updated, back then, and an inaccurate resource to use.

[Keebz]

It sounds more like paci didn't work at all in era from the testimonials and missing spdat entry. 2 minutes is too long.

[Impact1983]

It sounds more like paci didn't work at all in era from the testimonials and missing spdat entry. 2 minutes is too long.

Missing data must mean it didn't ever fade.

[Dolalin]

The eqemu buff duration formula page is also helpful to find the correct calculation for a particular formula.


That makes perfect sense now -- I was wondering how that could work if there was no duration set!

I agree with your conclusion, 7 minutes seems right.

[scifo76]

Pacify definitely had a 7 mins duration during Velious.

[Goregasmic]

From a logical standpoint:

Calm is half the mana and faster casting, faster reset, with nearly zero aggro radius. The only practical reason to use pacify is for the 7 minutes duration. Hell I often use soothe because the calm duration and agro reduction is overkill anyway, which makes pacify super niche. Reducing pacify's duration basically eliminates its only reason to exist.

That and wake of tranquility will keep its 7 min duration? It is basically AE pacify.

[Jimjam]

I had a little dwarf cleric back on live. He didn’t get far, but far enough to learn the early lull spells. I learned from somewhere it could make it easier to single pull from a group of mobs. Obviously with dwarven charisma my attempts to break camps were often greeted with a crit resist. Particularly when a camp had a red and yellow in addition to the blue i hoped to isolate.

I remember trying to learn what the spell was all about - the descriptions mentioned how frenzy and assist radius would be lowered (followed by what appeared to be a fraction with a single digit nominator and double digit denominator) and how it would pacify mobs

While I now understand the vibe of how lull work, to this day I’m not sure what these different radii, numbers nor ‘pacify’ actually mean.

I also wonder whether lull has use beyond reducing the range/chance (?) that a mob aggros an enemy / assists a friend? Does pacify reduce everyones hate totem to zero while not actually removing them from the hate list perhaps? What does the ‘pacify’ line in the spell description actually do seeing as the first two lines already seem to cover the main functions?

[spoil]

Pacify definitely had a 7 mins duration during Velious.

+1

[Goregasmic]

I had a little dwarf cleric back on live. He didn’t get far, but far enough to learn the early lull spells. I learned from somewhere it could make it easier to single pull from a group of mobs. Obviously with dwarven charisma my attempts to break camps were often greeted with a crit resist. Particularly when a camp had a red and yellow in addition to the blue i hoped to isolate.

I feel like a lot of the "I remember lull/charm being useless on live" testimonies don't take into account that people most likely tried to lull/charm even cons with low charisma.

People also widely thought your MH's delay set your OH delay when dual weilding and we're not reworking the entire combat system around this misunderstanding of game mechanics. I'm sure you could find plenty of "proofs" of that "fact" on old message board posts.

[Treefall]

I finally got pacify like a week ago, so this nerf makes sense. :)

I have no idea what it should be, but 7 min seemed great!

[funry]

Is this being prioritized to revert this back to 7minutes? It seems like enough evidence was provided to contradict this "fix". Please rollback asap.

[BardP99EQ]

Stop it. Castersrealm was the 'proof' for this egregious setback? lol

That site was well-known to be unsupported (especially in Velious) and full of errors.

[Zuranthium]

I'm sorry but castersrealm was widely known to not be updated, back then, and an inaccurate resource to use.

That's not true at all. Castersrealm pulled the info directly from the server and was confirmed correct by devs back then.

I feel like a lot of the "I remember lull/charm being useless on live" testimonies don't take into account that people most likely tried to lull/charm even cons with low charisma.

Trying to Lull blue cons while having a good amount of charisma often did not work. As shown in the other thread, Lulls simply got resisted far more often back then, which also meant more critical resists, meaning it was rarely a reliable tool.

[Ichewith]

if we are taking testimony into account wouldnt the p99 player base be the best source since most of us played back then? as a chanter through my whole eq career i know for sure that if you built right ie charis (most didnt back then and built int) lull worked pretty reliably. if ya want to use forum posts as verified info on a game i highly reccomend you visit some new ones and see how outlandishly misinformed people were on builds and how to play said game.

[Rygar]

if we are taking testimony into account wouldnt the p99 player base be the best source since most of us played back then? as a chanter through my whole eq career i know for sure that if you built right ie charis (most didnt back then and built int) lull worked pretty reliably. if ya want to use forum posts as verified info on a game i highly reccomend you visit some new ones and see how outlandishly misinformed people were on builds and how to play said game.

Edit: oops, I forgot the client decompile was for the charm break stuff Torven figured out.

But to answer you question: I played back in the day but often I mix eras. As an example I was doing velious content during Luclin and even PoP, so often hard to pinpoint exact era my velious memories were in.

Memories can help lead us to a path, but things like that splat file can back it up as can other forum posts.

[Duik]

Splat file. My wizzie had one of those.

But to answer you question: I played back in the day but often I mix eras. As an example I was doing velious content during Luclin and even PoP, so often hard to pinpoint exact era my velious memories were in.


This, imho accounts for many "memory malfunctions" unless said player didnt play past Velious.

[Impact1983]

That's not true at all. Castersrealm pulled the info directly from the server and was confirmed correct by devs back then.

You must have lived through a different timeline of reality because I remember Castersrealm being essentially abandoned and not updated in Velious.

[Goregasmic]

Trying to Lull blue cons while having a good amount of charisma often did not work. As shown in the other thread, Lulls simply got resisted far more often back then, which also meant more critical resists, meaning it was rarely a reliable tool.

My chanter is 55 with 243 charisma self buffed and this week I was reliably pulling the froglok king and his PH (level 47) from behind using calm crit resists to work around his throne's LOS.

So by your own logic it's fine.

[nyclin]

That's not true at all. Castersrealm pulled the info directly from the server and was confirmed correct by devs back then.



Trying to Lull blue cons while having a good amount of charisma often did not work. As shown in the other thread, Lulls simply got resisted far more often back then, which also meant more critical resists, meaning it was rarely a reliable tool.

CR was a terribly basic, rarely updated website. It didn't pull anything "directly from the server" (what does this even mean?) and relied on user-supplied info, not spdat parses or "the server."

On live I had an ENC bound outside of Sebilis during early-mid Velious and I would regularly solo my way to NG while naked, using Lull. Also never had much of an issue with charm breaks, despite all of the claims to the contrary that I see in this forum.

[Duik]

The mobs were just averting their eyes im sure.

[Telin]

Pacify and other lull spells in our era should have unique resist modifiers that scale with the mob's level. These modifiers are currently not implemented on P99, which affects the intended usefulness of these spells.

The current version behaves more like the Luclin/PoP era, where the duration was reduced to 42 seconds. However, in our era, the duration should technically extend up to 7 minutes. As a compromise, until the resist calculations are corrected to match the classic mechanics, I will set the max duration to half of the original—3.5 minutes.

[darkmaster_tape]

Based on your post, it sounds like the minimum duration is 2 minutes and the maximum duration is 7 minutes. If that is the case, would a more sensible compromise not be the difference between the minimum and the maximum (4.5 minutes)?

[Goregasmic]

Pacify and other lull spells in our era should have unique resist modifiers that scale with the mob's level. These modifiers are currently not implemented on P99, which affects the intended usefulness of these spells.

The lulls are already increasingly unreliable the closer to your level the mobs are. Are these unique resists modifiers known and are they an added resist layer or they're just the base values that use a different scale?

Mobs level 51+ are notorious dangerous to lull, to the point enchanters figured different ways to deal with high level packed mobs. Will the implementation further cement the dangers of lulling at higher levels or it is going to make things more difficult across the board?

Even as a 3.5mins duration, pacify is currently not worth casting over calm right now in my opinion.

[Ropethunder]

Does anyone have any anecdotal evidence as it pertains to resists in the lull line pre and post expansions (Kunark/Velious).

I am curious to know how people, who had high level enchanters, recall how viable lull was for splitting level 50+ mobs in classic era and expansions, or if that was simply no longer viable at that point.

Please note that this question has nothing to do with partial resists or crit resists as it pertains to aggro, but rather how reliable the spell was as a high level enchanter targeting these high level mobs in pre-Luclin.

[Goregasmic]

Like I said before, reliability of charm hangs a lot on charisma. I remember the effects of charisma being known back then but I don't remember chanters going all out charisma like we do here. And if charm/lull was known (or perceived) to be broken, did people really get to 255cha just for mez? Sounds like a self fulfilling prophecy.

This got me really curious so I figured I'd go check the allakhazam comments before 2002 on iconic charisma enchanter items to see if people had anything to say about this topic.

Gypsy medallion:

*I* would wear the metal with 9cha... [over 7int 7str neck] then I could have options to switch another item for int... Mainly I go with the item that has the biggest bonous, counting int and cha the same... but cha items are easier to get, so I mainly have +cha itmes.

40 Enchanter (201cha ~134int)

counting int and cha the same

In direct reply:

Man, you must run out of mana fast. At level 40 you only have 134 intelligence? I'm quite honestly surprised. If you value the two at equal importance, you should balance the two, not go with the one item with the better stat on one piece, I.E. you should have 175int/175cha or whatever it equates to being (not neccesarily even like that, just relatively close.)

In direct reply:

thats not why bards and enchanters max their charisma folks. its for the charm mez work we do. Mana is second to this as we can use verants mobs to work for us. I would call 170 charisma or higher good for most work.

170 huh? Seen other posts of people wondering if the cha cap is 120, 170, 180 or 220 so it is possible people believed they capped lower than the actual cap.

dint know about you, but when i sell, i put on my cha stuff, and when i am not...i wear my int stuff, not hard..
*sigh*i keep forgetting that my Forsaken Pariah mask is -25 cha..you know how many times i forget to take it off?


This guy must think charm/lull is garbage.


Inlaid jade hoop:

The HP/Mana are golden by the time you get this, as most or all Int-Casters will have 200 Int or more easily at this point, and more CHA is always nice for an enchie as well.


Implying cha is a secondary concern.

As a 57 chanter, this would quickly be slapped on my ears to replace my gold black sapphire earrings. 2 ac, 10 more hp, and 3 cha to boot.Quite nice for enchanters with 200 int, as every bit of hp and ac helps when we get aggro(and we do), and mana to boot

How many 57 chanters with 255 cha and 200int in 2001?

Insidious halo:

ooo 20 charisma extra is very nice! :) Would gladly replace my present platinum tiara for this golden nugget ;)


Extra? Platinum tiara? No siryn hair hood or CoKTranix?

Under crown of king tranix a bunch of people are saying its great for bard/chanters so at least there's that.

Earring of blazing energy:

As for the earring, it's nice. Better than a batskull at this level, assuming your over your 187 intel.

Batskull? Especially at 46+?

Oppaline earring:

Great for enchanters i have a 26 enchanter he wears these the cha is great +5...i reccomend for enchanters im 26 and havent found anything better if you find any plz post

This guy got it.

In direct reply:

personally, i think it would be better for an enchanter to have those +3 int earrings (you know, the ones from the easy quest in the qeynos catacombs) on and make yourself pairs of electrum star ruby rings (+5dex +7cha) and gold cats eye bracelets (+7cha).

If he values cha on rings/bracers I'm not sure why he values +int earrings more? Balance maybe?


That's the items that came to mind. I could dig more but it seems pretty clear back then cha was not a top priority, if not just an afterthought for a lot of chanters. It also seemed clear to me that no one really knew what the cap was and aimed for arbitrary numbers, usually much lower than the actual caps.

This reinforces my belief that low charisma values tainted the perception of the effectiveness of charm/lulls on live back then. Unless you can find an enchanter that will be like "I had ~255cha back then and charmed/lulled in seb/velks/charasis and here's how it went", I really don't feel testimonies about the effectiveness of lull/charm are reliable if no charisma value is provided. That being said, most people recognize that charisma is good for lull/mez/charm so I feel like lull/charm was not as useless back then as some claim or it would be a non factor.

[zelld52]

Charisma has a near non effect on charm on p99. I have experienced as both Necro with 25 charisma and enchanter with 255 charisma; both toons had same success on Landing charm and charm duration on same mobs lat same player level. (Necro charm rarely ever got resisted unless I tried to charm a higher level than appropriate)

The difference was the critucal resists on pacify. Necro got so many more crit resists than enchanter did over the course of playing. (Necro had crit on resist like 30% of the time compared to less than 10% on enchanter)

[Jimjam]

Necro doesn’t have a charisma check, so surely it is expected to perform similar to an enchanter which passes theirs at the best possible rate?

[Goregasmic]

Charisma has a near non effect on charm on p99. I have experienced as both Necro with 25 charisma and enchanter with 255 charisma; both toons had same success on Landing charm and charm duration on same mobs lat same player level. (Necro charm rarely ever got resisted unless I tried to charm a higher level than appropriate)

The difference was the critucal resists on pacify. Necro got so many more crit resists than enchanter did over the course of playing. (Necro had crit on resist like 30% of the time compared to less than 10% on enchanter)

We don't know how the charm on a necro/druid works so we can't really draw any parallels. All we know is they don't seem to have a cha check while the chanter one does have one.

If you want to know the effects of cha on chanter charm you'd have to run the same test with no cha gear and see how it goes. I leveled a fresh chanter in 2024 on p99 with no twink gear and no money and I saw a significant difference going from like 120cha to 190ish cha in my 30s-40s. Then again it could partially be attributed to better tash spells and a widening level gap with mobs. Also, you have to keep in mind there's a soft cap at 200 so the last 55 points won't matter nearly as much.

That being said, even if cha had no impact on charm, I lull/mez so much I'd still run a high amount.

[jmorden]

CHA has big implications on crit fails currently and it's very noticeable

[Zuranthium]

CR was a terribly basic, rarely updated website. It didn't pull anything "directly from the server" (what does this even mean?) and relied on user-supplied info, not spdat parses or "the server."

Wrong. There is an entire interview about it, with the actual designer of the Everquest spells, who was working on the game throughout the entirety of classic. Casters Realm, certainly during classic era, scraped the game files for their info and he confirmed it was correct.

I am curious to know how people, who had high level enchanters, recall how viable lull was for splitting level 50+ mobs in classic era and expansions, or if that was simply no longer viable at that point.

It wasn't viable. Already wasn't reliable to begin with on most blue-con mobs. Hence the mountains of people, who did have high Charisma, talking about how much Lull sucked and how jealous they were of Harmony.

[Goregasmic]

It wasn't viable. Already wasn't reliable to begin with on most blue-con mobs. Hence the mountains of people, who did have high Charisma, talking about how much Lull sucked and how jealous they were of Harmony.

Harmony is dirt cheap, AE and cannot fail or even get resisted. Even with lull not sucking the advantages (outdoors) are obvious. The only AE lull ench get is 300 mana with a significant cooldown and comes with all the drawbacks of ench lulls.

7mins lull is great in general though.

[Zuranthium]

The AoE aspect wasn't the draw of Harmony. What mattered is Harmony actually worked. It COULD get resisted though (this is another thing that needs to be changed on p99). Not exactly sure on the level limit, but a Level 5 Druid couldn't just go Harmony a Level 50 target. At least not after very early classic, when they changed a few previously unresistible spell lines to be resistible by deep red cons.

All other lull spells in classic were quite weak. Very high resist rate, which lead to a critical fail frequently. Unless you were near a zone line or had a Cleric to rez (or were a Necro with FD lulling undead), it was generally not worth risking lull if you weren't able to break a camp with root/mez to begin with. Lull was mostly just something you would hope to high roll with to save a bit of time/mana, since if it worked a lull meant casting less root/mez. If it didn't work after the first couple casts, which was common, then you'd usually just stop.

ALSO, regarding this theoretical "7 minute Pacify duration", the Lull line is supposed to have a chance of ending early, every tick.

[nilbog]

I've recently done a lot of research on lull type spells, and have some validating questions.

In classic, lulls seemed to have a tiered resist floor which would mean lvl 50+ npcs were completely immune. Is there any research or additional input about casting a lull type spell on a 50+ npc?

Did low level lull type spells have level caps on what they could affect? For example, could a cleric cast the lowest level 'lull' spell on a level 40 npc, or would they need to cast calm or pacify for a chance to succeed?

Could bard lull (Kelin's Lugubrious Lament) work on mobs that cleric/ranger lulls couldn't? Or did it follow the same logic.

Were there specific mobs that were notably immune to lull? I discovered 14 different npc races which should always be immune to lull spells, but these are 'guard/city' type races.

[Wayward]

Ranger lull? Harmony is unresistable, innit?

[Crede]

Ranger lull? Harmony is unresistable, innit?

Rangers can calm animals. Not the same as harmo as it works indoors.

[Wayward]

Rangers can calm animals. Not the same as harmo as it works indoors.

Ah yeah - but that's the same as all other Pacify though, at least that's what I thought. That the class doesn't matter, the Pacify spells all work based on the same mechanic, just with different level of mob it will work on and a different Frenzy radius.

[Wayward]

ie: from Live

Calm Animal
Classes: RNG/31, DRU/15
Mana :45
Duration: 7 ticks

Slot 1: Frenzy Radius(5/50)
Slot 2: Reaction Radius(10/50)
Slot 3: Pacify

Casting Time: 2.5
Recast Time: 5.0
Recovery Time: 1.5
Skill: Alteration
Spell Type: Beneficial
Target Type: Animals
Resist: Magic (no adjust) Range: 200
Interruptable: Yes
Deleteable: Yes
Dispellable: Yes
Time of day: Any
Location: Any

Pacify
Classes: CLR/36, PAL/49, ENC/35
Mana :100
Duration: 7 ticks

Slot 1: Frenzy Radius(1/55)
Slot 2: Reaction Radius(1/55)
Slot 3: Pacify

Cast on you: You feel your aggression subside.
Cast on other: Someone looks less aggressive.
Wears off:

Casting Time: 3.0
Recast Time: 6.0
Recovery Time: 1.5
Skill: Alteration
Spell Type: Beneficial
Target Type: Single Target, Any PC
Resist: Magic (no adjust) Range: 200
Interruptable: Yes
Deleteable: Yes
Dispellable: Yes
Time of day: Any
Location: Any

The only discernible difference is the Frenzy / Reaction radius

[Zuranthium]

Some evidence of Harmony not being completely unresistible: "Harmony worked 90% of the time and never ever aggroed on failure" (https://dbsanfte.github.io/eq-archives/newsgroups/alt.games.everquest-msg-196626.txt) / "Harmony seems far superior to me, not only because it's AOE, but because it is resisted so seldom." (https://dbsanfte.github.io/eq-archives/mailing-lists/eqbards/html/17033.html) / lots of talk here about occasional resists (https://web.archive.org/web/20000831234906/http://boards.station.sony.com/everquest/Forum2/HTML/002718.html). I specifically remember needing to cast Harmony several times on a red con goblin in classic before it would stick.

Is there any research or additional input about casting a lull type spell on a 50+ npc?

I haven't yet found a player precisely saying "lull resists 100% of the time on Level 50+ NPC's", but literally every post from a classic Enchanter or Cleric says "don't even bother trying to use these spells at high levels" - https://web.archive.org/web/20010207164226/http://boards.station.sony.com/everquest/Forum2/HTML/052139.html / https://web.archive.org/web/20010206231210/http://forums.castersrealm.com/eq/Forum9/HTML/003538.html / https://web.archive.org/web/20010823021201/http://forums.castersrealm.com/cgi-bin/eq/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=9&t=005368

Did low level lull type spells have level caps on what they could affect? For example, could a cleric cast the lowest level 'lull' spell on a level 40 npc, or would they need to cast calm or pacify for a chance to succeed?

There doesn't seem to be any level cap. Lots of talk about Pacify being a waste of mana and mainly using Lull (but both failing most of the time).

Could bard lull (Kelin's Lugubrious Lament) work on mobs that cleric/ranger lulls couldn't?

I assume you've seen this thread, detailing almost everything that needs to be changed (https://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?p=270611#post270611) (the exception being damage spells, which were given lower resists specifically for players over level 50 - I didn't save the link where Abashi or Absor on the official forums posted about the change; I also randomly saw Atol's Spectral Shackles being patched to resist less (https://web.archive.org/web/20020310045419/http://pub23.ezboard.com/fgraffeswizardcompilationfrm20.showMessage?topicID =14.topic)).

Bard lull should work on all targets and cut the target's magic resist in half for the resist check, while having a minimum 6% resist chance at all levels. When searching through countless posts, Bards notably are not complaining about their lull song, in comparison to Enchanters and Clerics all calling their lull spells trash.

[spoil]

I notice in all these classic discussions of the lull spell line, there's not a single mention of the word "charisma."

So I would expect a level 54 enchanter with 83 CHA trying to use wake of tranquility on a pack of level 50+ mobs in upper dogs to consider the lull spell line to be suicidal. They didn't know anything about the game. This is pretty useless anecdotal evidence.

No chanter on p99 is running around with less than 200 CHA or trying to lull high level velious mobs below level 60. Find a post of a level 60 enchanter with 255 CHA struggling to lull mobs 10+ levels lower in the classic era.

[nilbog]

So regarding charisma, when a lull spell was resisted there was a separate charisma check to determine if the resist caused aggro. The best formula we have for this is 90 - CHA/4, based on how resists worked in early clients.

Those values would be like:

CHA/aggro chance by resist
83 / 69%
100 / 65%
150 / 52%
200 / 40%
255 / 26%

In early clients there was a tiered resist floor for lulls:

npc level/resist %
1-14 / 10%
15-24 / 20%
25-34 / 33%
35-39 / 42%
40-49 / 54%
50+ / 100%


These are the values I have at the moment based on research into the early client code. For anyone reading that is interested, the key thing is that charisma doesn't affect whether the lull lands; it determines whether a resisted lull causes the mob to aggro. Landing rate is determined by the tiered floor based on npc level, independent of CHA.

With this model, an enchanter with 83 CHA trying to lull level 50+ npcs would face immunity due to the tiered floor. A 255 CHA enchanter would get the same result. Where charisma matters is lulling sub-50 npcs and getting too many resists. At 83 CHA roughly 7 out of 10 resists would aggro. At 200 CHA it's 4 out of 10, and at 255 CHA about 1 in 4.

I'd be curious if anyone remembers this matching their experience with lull working for low and mid level content but hitting a wall on higher level mobs regardless of gear.

[Zuranthium]

I notice in all these classic discussions of the lull spell line, there's not a single mention of the word "charisma." So I would expect a level 54 enchanter with 83 CHA trying to use wake of tranquility on a pack of level 50+ mobs in upper dogs to consider the lull spell line to be suicidal. They didn't know anything about the game.

No, stop lying. Charisma doesn't do anything in the first place to affect initial resist chance on lull. There's tons of posts from people with high Charisma trying to lull things far below their level and it doesn't work. For example, from page 13 of the first link about lull on my previous post:

"Lull resists in upwards of 75% of casting, a drolvarg rager when I was 49th resisted Pacify 80% of 20 casts (16) and aggroed for 8 of those. I had 217 Charisma at the time"

That's simply how the game was and you're showing how inexperienced you are with classic to say otherwise. People absolutely were trying to get high CHA on Enchanters, it was known to make mesmerize better (Extensive CHA testing (https://search.eqarchives.org/?size=n_20_n&filters%5B0%5D%5Bfield%5D=id&filters%5B0%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D=websites%2Fforum s.castersrealm.com%2F20001121030200%2Fcgi-bin%2Feq%2Fpostings.cgi%3Faction%3Dreply%26forum%3 DGeneral%26number%3D9%26topic%3D002086.cgi%26Topic Subject%3DCharisma%20Study&filters%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=all) / "At 137 CHA I had 45% resist rate, at 217 CHA I had 37% resist rate" (https://search.eqarchives.org/?size=n_20_n&filters%5B0%5D%5Bfield%5D=id&filters%5B0%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D=websites%2Fforum s.crgaming.com%2F20040107150139%2Feqbb%2Fviewtopic .php%3Ft%3D22981&filters%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=all) / "I wouldn't recommend doing Hate plane with less than 200 CHA" (https://dbsanfte.github.io/eq-archives/mailing-lists/eqenchanters/html/2576.html)), which was important because root was harder to stick back then and it was harder to channel, so people highly valued mez.

That's why Enchanters were mad when Velious came out (along with most other casters - Velious zone feedback (https://web.archive.org/web/20010303112418/http://boards.station.sony.com/everquest/Forum2/HTML/052707-5.html) / Why being a caster in Velious really sucks (https://web.archive.org/web/20010223213230/http://boards.station.sony.com/everquest/Forum2/HTML/057442.html) / A Fundamental Flaw: Why the EQ System Is Breaking Down At High Levels (https://web.archive.org/web/20010310075920/http://boards.station.sony.com/everquest/Forum2/HTML/064620.html)) - because resists were too high on NPC's in the expansion and giants couldn't be mezzed at all. There are posts that describe how "crowd control has now become people kiting around snared NPCs".

I specifically searched for examples of Level 60 people trying to lull in places like the Planes or Kael or Grotto or Sebilis or Chardok and there's zero classic examples of it ever being viable. If anyone wants to search for examples from the first 9 months of Luclin, lull was still trash during that time period too. The spell line was expressly made terrible by Verant after beta because they didn't want people playing the game like that.

[Keebz]

Relevant Torven links:

https://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showpost.php?p=270623&postcount=4

https://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showpost.php?p=270611&postcount=9

Just for my own sanity, we're talking to Torven right?

[Goregasmic]

That's simply how the game was and you're showing how inexperienced you are with classic to say otherwise. People absolutely were trying to get high CHA on Enchanters, it was known to make mesmerize better (Extensive CHA testing (https://search.eqarchives.org/?size=n_20_n&filters%5B0%5D%5Bfield%5D=id&filters%5B0%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D=websites%2Fforum s.castersrealm.com%2F20001121030200%2Fcgi-bin%2Feq%2Fpostings.cgi%3Faction%3Dreply%26forum%3 DGeneral%26number%3D9%26topic%3D002086.cgi%26Topic Subject%3DCharisma%20Study&filters%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=all) / "At 137 CHA I had 45% resist rate, at 217 CHA I had 37% resist rate" (https://search.eqarchives.org/?size=n_20_n&filters%5B0%5D%5Bfield%5D=id&filters%5B0%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D=websites%2Fforum s.crgaming.com%2F20040107150139%2Feqbb%2Fviewtopic .php%3Ft%3D22981&filters%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=all) / "I wouldn't recommend doing Hate plane with less than 200 CHA" (https://dbsanfte.github.io/eq-archives/mailing-lists/eqenchanters/html/2576.html)), which was important because root was harder to stick back then and it was harder to channel, so people highly valued mez.

You're extrapolating what a few people knew to a whole player base. If you go to the allakhazam comment sections of all the staple cha items for the era it appeared the jury was still out on cha. Most players seemed to consider it a secondary stat or at best on par with int.



I specifically searched for examples of Level 60 people trying to lull in places like the Planes or Kael or Grotto or Sebilis or Chardok and there's zero classic examples of it ever being viable. If anyone wants to search for examples from the first 9 months of Luclin, lull was still trash during that time period too. The spell line was expressly made terrible by Verant after beta because they didn't want people playing the game like that.

Even on here lulling in Kael/sirens/planes is difficult due to high MR. chardok is the easiest with like 1/5 crit resist on a ~53mob. You're the one who sounds inexperienced, lull isn't even viable in SG on green, some days it takes me 2 full mana bars worth of WOTs to get the 3 ent seahorses calmed.

Like, I don't think your position is necessarily wrong but you're clearly misrepresenting the state of live at the time and current green which makes people doubt your claims/research.

[WarpathEQ]

"Lull resists in upwards of 75% of casting, a drolvarg rager when I was 49th resisted Pacify 80% of 20 casts (16) and aggroed for 8 of those. I had 217 Charisma at the time"



Seems to line up pretty well with the figures that nilbog posted for mob level resist rates and CHA based agro rates.

[Zuranthium]

You're extrapolating what a few people knew to a whole player base.

No, it was stated in 1999 by the devs what CHA did. People didn't know the exact numbers on how things worked, but they knew you wanted high CHA on Enchanters and Bards, and the starting stats at character creation make that apparent. In terms of the "whole player base", far less people were informed about most things in general, but that's irrelevant to this. The highest level players were the most in-the-know and lull was not working for anyone.

lull isn't even viable in SG on green, some days it takes me 2 full mana bars worth of WOTs to get the 3 ent seahorses calmed.

This sentence literally describes how lull is viable there on p99, when it shouldn't be.

Talk about misrepresentation.

[Goregasmic]

This sentence literally describes how lull is viable there on p99, when it shouldn't be.

Talk about misrepresentation.

If you played the game sometimes you'd remember the only reason it is "viable" in SG is because sea creatures won't come to land.

That's what I mean by using bad faith arguments to prove an otherwise valid point. You could literally have made your point using any other zone in the game but you picked the most overtuned ones and still ended up being wrong.

[Zuranthium]

I'm not wrong at all. You fallaciously stated that taking 2 bubbles of mana to Lull 3 level 50+ NPC's equates to being "not viable", when that is a massive cheat code compared to Classic EQ. You shouldn't be able to Lull those targets at all and even a group of 3 level 40-49 NPC's should be nearly impossible to completely lull.

Getting 3 lulls to land on level 40-49 NPC's is supposed to be only a 9% chance of working (45% roll for each target), and even more importantly, Lull is supposed to resist check every single tick and end early. So actually, you need to time Wake of Tranquility perfectly to land right after a tick happens, and even then you have barely any time to use it. Realistically, you're down to a mere 1% chance of being able to WOT 3 NPC's and safely run through (although, order of operations in the server code becomes important here — is Lull still supposed to work on the tick that it ends? I'm not sure — that's something Nilbog may need to decide on). Hence why everyone who played Classic has stated that lulls suck, WOT in particular.

And what are you even talking about with trying to say I'm using Siren's Grotto as a sole example? You're the one who made the bizarre statement about that zone. There aren't ANY high level zones where lull was considered good in classic and there's 0 examples of it ever working on Level 50+ targets.