Patch Notes, Tuesday July 13th

[mmiles8]

The Progression of Guard Changes on Live


DECEMBER 8, 1999

A number of NPC guards have received an increase in stats.

MAY 12, 2000

As we are sure many people are aware, there are guards that exist specifically for the purpose of giving new characters a place to run in order to be saved from a certain death. However, as many people have mentioned, these guards are frequently either dead, or engaged by players choosing to hunt them. This makes things very frustrating for newer players, and with the large influx of new players due to the release of EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark, we decided that a change was warranted.

Though we do not have a problem with players choosing to hunt guards, the newbie guards themselves, specifically the ones at the gates of cities and in the vicinity of newbie zones, need to remain alive under most circumstances. To that end, we have buffed up these newbie-protecting guards, made them immune to magic, and given them some pretty good healing properties, in order to make them less attractive to people hunting them.

In addition, though we have left the guards inside cities as-is from the perspective of power, we've also found a problem with the respawn rate. Previously they were typically on a six-minute timer, making them spawn much faster than an equivalent NPC would in a dungeon. We have normalized the respawn time of guards inside cities to bring them in line with dungeon NPCs.

MAY 16, 2000

Several problems with the guards that were buffed up last week have been addressed. Some guards that should not have been buffed have been fixed. In addition, due to the level of the new guards, they all gained the ability to innately see-invisible. The level of those guards has been reduced so that they no longer automatically get this ability, making it a bit easier to sneak by them.

[Aposi]

i stand by never waiting that long for a guard to spawn, in 99, to 2002 when i still killed guards.
But whatever floats your boat.

[PureLo]

i like mmiles bringing in data to back up his sourcing.... but since i do not quite know what exactly your argumentation is whether it is FOR this particular change in this patch or AGAINST this particular change in this patch.

So to begin if you are FOR this change being in this patch... i would have to say that your proof counteracts the changes of this because as you can read before your bold print toward the end of the first paragraph it clearly states due to the release of EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark with that being said this is still classic and following the progression the changes shouldn't have yet been made since Kunark has yet to be released on this server.

If you are AGAINST the changes being made within this particular patch... than your proof is quite a legitimate argument to pose towards your stance.



To other comments...I do however take notice that being this era of the game is very old it is hard to find circumstances where you can get all the correct information for coding and that is fine. The small instances weren't exactly what i was referring to that could improve the game to take away glitches or bugs, rather the ones being made to greatly effect the feel of the game being "classic" or "customized"

I am not just commenting about this patch alone Nilbog, but many patches over the course of the past few months contributing changes effecting the game greatly in either a pure "classic" manner or a pure "customization" manner. I am enjoying the game regardless, i just hear a lot of people muttering things and figure i would say something on their behalf in the thread since a lot of them are not doing so for themselves. My only stance is i don't want to see the EQ i once knew and love get turned into something it is not with numerous customized changes unless we are told that is the direction you all want to take. I see it still being advertised as the age old MMO many people grew to love, so i just expect those types of changes to happen is all.

[bionicbadger]

I soloed guards in freeport well into the velious period and it was no where near a 20 minute spawn.

[Aposi]

I actually did not notice that in the post PureLo, Thanks. So i am not crazy. i knew that they did not change the guard timers all the time i was camping the guards. So in other words Take the patch back or at least the guard change and wait til kunark like classic, Thank you.

[Kani]

Really don't understand the changes in the Guard spawn timers. I figured they were going change them when they release Kunark, along with buffing gate guards, which is how it happened on live.In fact, on live I was at the west freeport gate killing guards when the message to "log out," was broadcast. Got back in and started to cast on a guard when another druid who was there pointed out the con change.
As for Verant's reasoning, it was was a bunch of crap, in my opinion. I had countless newbies run to me for heal, ds, and buffs when leveling up out in front of Freeport or wherever I happened to be killing guards at the time. I know many others who hunted guards at the time, that did the same. Honestly, I just think they hadn't anticipated guards being such popular sport.

All said and done,this just doesn't really keep with the spirit of progression, unless there is a reason behind this. What does it hurt to change them back til Kunark?
To add , this is just an observation, and my opinion. I appreciate all the hard work the devs do, and applaud their commitment.

[doacleric]

Guard changes were made because they were highly unbalanced. For a pure risk vs reward standpoint, killing guards offered far less risk compared to a dungeon (sow available, zone lines available, less trains, etc), while offering spawn rates 4x that of a dungeon. In other words, a far easier encounter that potentially offers 4x the experience. It didn't make sense, and thats why it was fixed by Verant back over a decade ago.

Again, we have nothing against players hunting guards. EQ has never placed any restrictions upon what you can and can't kill (like WoW for example). But there has to be a certain amount of balance in the game.

[PureLo]

still wasn't made until after kunark when there was more content to camp and XP whereas now with population growing it is just a customizable change which shouldn't have been made in my opinion and many others.

Why should certain people get penalized when it is just their last resort of xp or money when everything else seems to be camped? Besides there is balance if one person can do it many can it isn't like it is only for an exclusive club.... plus the fact of xp bonuses in dungeons and groups killing mobs as compared to soloing guards needs to also be factored into the ratio. There are so many variables that could be argued against the change, but the fact remains even Verant didn't make it until POST Kunark.

Plus who knows what all other "customizable" stuff could have been done with something that reads.... (Super Secret Stuff) lol.

[Chodan]

I've been having this problem in Lower guk all night. The mob is right in front of me and I'm trying to cast but it says "You cannot see your target."

Ok, so I move the mob and now we're in a straight and level hallway and STILL the same problem. So I move myself but it still gives me "You cannot see your target."

Then I ooc it to the zone and apparently others have had the same issue.

I've been doing this all week and only after the patch has this happened to me. Granted, I've seen that message before but it was usually on a hill or the mob was on a chair or something.

Anyone else experiencing this too?

[YendorLootmonkey]

Originally Posted by doacleric [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Guard changes were made because they were highly unbalanced. For a pure risk vs reward standpoint, killing guards offered far less risk compared to a dungeon (sow available, zone lines available, less trains, etc), while offering spawn rates 4x that of a dungeon. In other words, a far easier encounter that potentially offers 4x the experience. It didn't make sense, and thats why it was fixed by Verant back over a decade ago.

Good, so here's a perfect example of a change to something that does not make sense and was fixed by Verant at a certain point much later in the timeline than was done here on this server. A post above showed this change didn't go in until after Kunark was released.

I agree that it doesn't make sense from a risk/reward standpoint, but you can't make that change if you are strictly following the timeline. Otherwise by the same reasoning, I would ask that you remove the class-based XP penalties which also were stated by Verant as not making sense, and change them earlier in the timeline as you have done here with the guard spawn time changes.

Again, tremendous amount of respect for the amount of time you guys put into maintaining this server for us, and I'm not trying to be rude or imply you're accountable to us in any way, but don't you see it's a tad hypocritical to have it both ways? This change kinda shows you're intentionally picking and choosing things to fix ahead of the classic timeline.