Red99 Monk feedback

[Vohl]

Melee vs caster discussion is already taking place all over the place. I won't go into that here.

I've leveled a monk from 1 to 50 on Beta, largely through solo effort. I did the same thing on live on a blue server. Here is what I have to say about the experience:

First, the good news. A monk can indeed solo through level 50, making the big whopping assumption that he isn't constantly ganked. The effort involved wasn't that great with the 10x XP, but I definitely lagged behind casters, even with the high spell cost. This means that the class balance is roughly on par with where it was back when Verant was running things. Good job!

I have been able to obtain a red sash and orange headband. Raster is a damned rare spawn, much like the old times. I have not tested the combine for the Robe of the Lost Circle. I'm assuming code and tables were largely copied from 1999 blue, so it's very likely these will work. Even so, I'm hoping to quest the robe in the remaining time on Beta to make sure it works.

Treantfists have both the captain and the cube drops working in Runnyeye. I haven't seen either alchemist (in Misty Thicket and Gorge), although they are working per other players. The Gorge PH cycle isn't in place; it looks like the static goblin spawn on the right when facing out from Runnyeye is being used as a PH instead.

I've documented a bug which will hit monks disproportionately. Mobs that path a long way due to use of Intimidation, or else a long pull, seem to occasionally become unable to be hit, much like a corpse. There is no attack spam, despite autoattack being switched on. This is detailed in the bug reports area.

Intimidation itself is a bit off. I'll see if I can find documentation of what used to be called Instill Doubt for monks. As it was originally implemented, the intimidation check used to require a 3-4 second charge up. During this time, a monk could be anywhere relative to the target. After the attack animation played through a bit, the skill check occurred. If successful, a melee kick was launched against the target, inflicting damage just as if the monk had used Kick skill. Mobs requiring magic weapons to hit, such as ghouls, required that the monk wear magic footwear to use this skill.

Furthermore, intimidated mobs ran more slowly than they do in Beta. It may be appropriate to add a slight snare component (10-15%) to reflect this. On the live machines, I was able to solo into the low 20s in South Karana by chasing around intimidated mobs and attacking. This will not work on Red99. Mobs run too fast, and perhaps more erratically than they did in classic. On Red99, I instead used Intimidation to chase off mobs in order to apply a couple bandages using Bind Wounds.

Disarm skill seems to not be increasing correctly. On live, the skill shot up very quickly. On Red99, I've managed to hit the low 100s with this. In PvP, Disarming another PC would work from time to time, causing the main hand item to pop to the mouse cursor. I have no idea if this will work on Red99 since the skill is simply not going up.

The inability to hand weapons to non-aggro NPCs while sneaking is already documented on both Project 1999 servers. This also impacts raising Disarm skill, since it was common to disarm remotely located guards, then FD and hand them back their weapon and repeat to train up skill on the old Verant servers.

I'm sorry to say that mobs with magic weapons were not capable of being disarmed in old EQ; there is a chance I'm wrong and this initially worked for a while. In any case, prior to Kunark, mobs wielding magic weapons could not be disarmed. I like the way this was implemented on 1999 - the weapon vanishes and no longer affects the mob's attacks, but remains in its inventory. Even so, this is not classic.

There also seems to be some problems with casting mobs. When they initially pop, they nuke your nuts off, much like in classic. After they've been up for a while, or have cast for long stretches, they instead just melee. I'm guessing that mana regeneration on these mobs is very slow compared to classic.

The boat in OOT is traveling the path differently than in classic. Sister island was always the first stop from Freeport. On Project 1999, it is the first stop from Butcherblock Mountains. I recall some talk about the cardinal directions being messed up in this zone in classic. Maybe this was a bug Verant never bothered to fix?

Recipes for raw silk, cured silk and tattered armors all appear to be working correctly. I have not tested Wu's, but assume it works as on blue99. As a side note, silk swatch and silk thread combines should be impossible to fail, even when not trivial. They currently fail as often as other combines.

Quest XP on red99 appears to be missing or else reduced to very low levels for the Lashun Novashine bone chip hand-in. This quest used to provide noticeable hits (1-2%) through level 6.

Thanks for all the work making this great new server!