CHARMING AND MEZZING

[bradsamma]

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

One of my favorite stories from live is that we had a 60 or maybe 65 shaman. I forget if it was Luclin or PoP, but he was a senior member of our fine hardcore raiding guild. Anyhow, the bloke eventually worked up the courage to ask how other people were able to cast spells with NPCs attacking them. Long story short, the guy never trained channeling.

Hahaha, I thought I was the only one who did this! I had the same problem on my Druid back in classic. Didn't have channeling trained for like 6 months.

[spoil]

Now that's classic.

[long.liam]

"
------------------------------
October 8, 2001
------------------------------

*** Item Changes ***

- Increased the duration on Song of the Deep Seas (the proc on a bardic
weapon) dramatically.

- Modified the effect of Feast of Blood (weapon proc) it is now a DoT
lifetap

- Added a texture to Flayed Barbarian Skin Leggings.

- Added Illusion: Barbarian to the Flayed Barbarian Hide Mask.


*** Miscellaneous Changes ***

- The last language used by your character will be stored in your
eqclient.ini file when you log out. This means that if the last
character you were playing was speaking Elvish, then when you log back
in with any character, that character will be speaking Elvish if he
can, otherwise it will be set to a default language (most often
Common).

*** Magic System Changes ***

There is a more detailed explanation of these changes posted on our
Developer's Corner. Please visit there for more details (either at
www.everquest.com or http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/everquest/cgi-
bin/Ultimate.cgi). Here is a summary of the changes:

- The level-based spell resistance bonus inherent in super-high level
NPCs has been reduced significantly.

- Several NPCs have had their resistances reduced. Each of them was
examined carefully, and resistances changed as seemed appropriate. For
some of these NPCs other things were changed as well to compensate for
their increased susceptibility to spells, such as armor improvements or
perhaps greater hit points, if needed for that NPC.

- NPCs that were highly magic resistant in order to make them immune to
certain spells can now be given specific immunity to those spells. This
means that they can be made immune to critical spells, as intended, and
still be generally less resistant to magic. Players will receive a
message similar to the one that is already given for Mesmerization
spells when they cast a spell on an NPC that it is specifically immune
to.

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is very important to note that we have not made any
NPCs immune to spells that they were not already immune to. Many NPCs
that were previously immune to spells due to their high innate
resistance to magic have had that resistance reduced and specific
immunities added. So if you see an immunity message after attempting to
cast a spell on an NPC that you hadn't seen such a message from before,
understand that the NPC was already immune to that spell before due to
high resistances, and the only difference is that it now has lower
resistances in general and specific spell immunity (which is why you
are seeing the message).
"
This is the only patch note I could find that refers to any magic resist changes. Pre-luclin and I believe it is within P99's timeline regardless, so even if somehow the "classic" magic resist code could gleamed from the dark corners of the web, it would have no affect on the blue server. It might affect the green server. However, it's very unlikely anyone can figure what the Magic resist code was before the changes. Anecdotal information is highly unreliable and mostly too vague to be helpful. Unless some uber nerd has log files or a video recording of the actual resist amounts on each mob, it most likely will remain as is.

[long.liam]

Also, the evidence required for making a major change like this would have to be huge and definitive. It's one thing to ask for adding a missing NPC from zone, not a huge deal, very little evidence is needed for that. Making a major game mechanics change requires huge amounts of definitive evidence to support it. By definitive, I don't mean repeated anecdotal stories, I mean actual in game data.

[Tann]

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

By definitive, I don't mean repeated anecdotal stories, I mean actual in game data.

This is outrageous!! My memberberries are solid proof that charming is broken here, I'd like to speak to the manager at once.

[Jimjam]

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

Also, the evidence required for making a major change like this would have to be huge and definitive. It's one thing to ask for adding a missing NPC from zone, not a huge deal, very little evidence is needed for that. Making a major game mechanics change requires huge amounts of definitive evidence to support it. By definitive, I don't mean repeated anecdotal stories, I mean actual in game data.

Idk. Hypothetically if there is more evidence for one state than another it is better to move it in the direction of that state… even if the likelihood it is less wrong rather than completely correct.

Bigger things than channelling, such as mitigation, have been given that treatment. It is unreasonable to expect a perfect recreation of these unknowns. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. Move things closer to how classic seemed even if imperfect.

[long.liam]

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

Idk. Hypothetically if there is more evidence for one state than another it is better to move it in the direction of that state… even if the likelihood it is less wrong rather than completely correct.

Bigger things than channelling, such as mitigation, have been given that treatment. It is unreasonable to expect a perfect recreation of these unknowns. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. Move things closer to how classic seemed even if imperfect.

They had data from in era to compare to for mitigation. Log files of what mobs hit for and relative mitigation rates. We need log files of resists rates from all mobs in era to compare. Additionally, we need to know how much the resists rate were change by Oct. 8, 2001 patch. This is still in era for P1999 though, so even if we established all of that it's highly unlikely that Nilbog or Rogean would implement it, because that would involve giving adjusting the resists rate before Velious and than readjusting back after velious. They have made it pretty clear before that they are not interested in doing mechanics adjustments when it comes to AC. Considering the workload this would entail, it's probable that whatever resist rates are current it will either remain the same or possible be lowered if current evidence suggest.

[Jimjam]

Are you agreeing with me? As the mitigation data didn’t include what the tanks were wearing or the attack values of mobs. And the solution landed on was actually decidedly non classic - especially in terms of caps and returns - because an un-classic model using the mob stats we have gave closer results to classic data than using exact classic mechanics (as all mobs would have needed a revamp to adjust their melee stats to fit the classic formula).

This is why I use mitigation as my key example - it is purposely unclassic in actual mechanics in order to give closer to classic results (than what it was previously).

You may be right that they’ve got the spells issues into the window of ‘close enough’ too.

[long.liam]

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

Are you agreeing with me? As the mitigation data didn’t include what the tanks were wearing or the attack values of mobs. And the solution landed on was actually decidedly non classic - especially in terms of caps and returns - because an un-classic model using the mob stats we have gave closer results to classic data than using exact classic mechanics (as all mobs would have needed a revamp to adjust their melee stats to fit the classic formula).

This is why I use mitigation as my key example - it is purposely unclassic in actual mechanics in order to give closer to classic results (than what it was previously).

You may be right that they’ve got the spells issues into the window of ‘close enough’ too.

I don't know if I agree with you or not. I'm not clear on what your position is on this subject. I dislike the term "Classic" or "Not-Classic", because no one, except maybe the original devs that worked on EQ, knows exactly how all the game mechanics worked in 1999-2000 ERA; The Original source codes for the game all gone; Very little hard data exist, if any, online; and the majority of "evidence" people post are little more the anecdotes and speculation about how they remember the game worked 20+ years ago. Human memory is notoriously unreliable. People often repeat information that they heard from someone else, even when that information is wrong. The Rumor Mill is a thing. Also, a lot us were younger video game players back then. At 12 years old I was not even that good at the game. Expecting a bunch of young Kids, Teenagers, and underachieving adults to accurately understand and report complex game mechanics is kind of far fetched.

I honestly think that at this points the term classic is meaningless, because no one has anything to accurately compare it to. The original game does not exist anymore. How does anyone know for certainty that the P99 devs didn't get 100% right on this or wrong on other things etc.

[Jimjam]

Oh yea, my position is as ethereal as the reality of ‘classic’ itself. Certainly I originally reposted this classic comment from casters realm as it does go against a certain narrative on the forum that charm was basically unused back in 1999 - the post clearly showed it worked at some level.

I do concede that implementation here is unlikely perfect BUT I do think it is functionally sufficient. There are certainly things I’d place at a higher priority (particularly getting newbie yards working classically - making it impossible to spawn camp and making it so newbie yards are full of mobs when overcamped but not overfull of mobs when undercamped).

Honestly fixing newbie yards would be my #1 desire preceding green 2.