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Apparently this is definitely still Beta...
dsorrent
Member CommonPosts: 1,627
in Everquest II
Well, it looks like this latest patch is a little flakey. There's LOTS of people now having connectivity issues ranging from unable to login to characters being stuck in the world for hours and not being able to login. I just find it humorous all of the people bitching about it. I mean, it is BETA.
Fact: In the United States, 4% of all children are born with a heart defect.
Fact: Only 1% of those has Ebstein's Anomaly.
Fact: My daughter is in that 1%.
Comments
Yeah it is beta, and that's why beta testers are there: to test and say when something is wrong. Wonder how many ppl said the same thing abour SWG: don't complain, it's still beta.
Right now I see the same thing going on: God forbid you say something that may be interpreted as "game is not ready for release", who in clear mind may want to give them such an idea.
As for my self, I was wrong and I apologize to Coldmeat, when I said that EQ2 as non-PvP game will be much easier to balance than WoW. The latest patch is almost complete departure from everything that has been previously said. Race DOES matter, sub-classes ARE fulfilling different roles. I still hear gripes about healers having too much aggro, tanks lacking proper taunts and so on.
And I don't even want to go into Crafting mess, which, it seems, is relegated to be not much more than aditional adventurers skill
Clerics DO have lots of crazy agro. Being one myself, it's freakin nuts! There can be 3 grouped mobs, the tanks start attacking one of the three, I begin to heal them, the other 2 that's not getting hit (and in some cases when they ARE getting hit) will come directly to me. Tanks need to figure out what to do cuz that's their job to keep those things off the healer.
A day in the life of a cleric:
Tanks: STOP RUNNING!! I can't attack it when you run!
Cleric: Fine.
/emote thinks to herself "This will be intresting. Let's see how fast I can die."
Next Fight:
heal.heal.heal.superheal.heal.heal....
WHACK! WHACK! 4 skellies are now agroed to the cleric. She just stands there, crying like a baby for help while trying to keep herself alive.... standing still. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
....ugh... dead....
Tanks: ...sorry bout that
For whatever it's worth, being someone who plays healers, I share your pain.
But last night while on my brawler, I was grouped with a druid killing Calenoit(sp?) skellies. She got to close to a group of 3 of them, and got aggro. I was taunting, shouting etc, and nothing would get them off her. I don't know if she had nettleshield on herself, or what. The before, and after that I had no problems holding aggro, just that one time.
It sounds to me like SOE got it right then.
When your attacking a mob, the first thing you do is take out the healer. I guess SOE caught on to that stradegy and put it in the AI
I really like that idea, very realistic.
were all gonna have to think for a change huh?
I've had the same thing happen twice.
Once the orc yelled "get the healer", and they all came after me. The other time, the orc yelled something about killing the warrior.
I'm not sure exactly how it works, other than it seems to be based off whoevers higher on the hate list. i.e. if the mage starts overnuking, they might yell, 'get the wizard'. Usually, I imagine, it will either be the tank, or most likely the healer given they way I have to chain all my heals in a group.
It's basically the same as EQLive, just that now they can actually say who's butt they're about to kick.
I'm not in beta but from forum posts I got impression that wards give you instant aggro, vitae at times and HoT almost never.
As for AI being life-like, if tanks cannot keep aggro or regain it after healer got it, please describe their role? Let everyone in group be be a healer and you have it perfect.
I don't think it's all that realistic. Thing of it, the mob is attacking a healer who's standing there doing nothing (because they can't) and some fighter is bashing the mob in from behind. I'd have to think there's some instinct to have the mob attempt to parry some of the fighters attacks. I don't think it's realistic for all of the mobs to be so dedicated to totally ignore the attacks from behind and stay focused on killing the healer.
Granted, the fact they turn on the healer is a GREAT idea, however, I think there needs to be a balance as to when they are going to attempt to turn and defend themselves.
Just think of it in terms of survival. If a mob attacks the healer every time, then that gives the tank the opportunity to kill the mob without it defending itself. Sure the mob may kill or badly hurt the healer, but it will be killed before the tank dies. If the mobs are truly "intelligent" then they would be aware of this problem and balance it out. Multiples would send one to take out the healer and the rest fight the tanks and everyone else. They respond to what each character is doing in battle to hurt them, which sounds like what is happening now with aggro...
I think its very realistis. Cuz that's how all of us fight. How many EQ'ers have started a fight and the mob had a healer and we noticed that they were healing their tank and we kept fighting the tank? No one ever did that, that would be silly, all of us, upon noticing the healer, would turn to the healer. Even if we are getting bashed from behind.
Ahem......ITS BETA!!.....let em work out the aggro issues....Its not the final release.
Now, I think the aggro voiceovers are very cool, heheh if ya listen, you know when to run like hell
I will put my self in NPC shoes and use DAoC PvP example. You are in a (NPC) group, there is a group leader, healer etc. Then from nowhere you have a (PC) group on top of your healer and casters. Do you go deffend your healer or go attack theirs? I think in most cases you will try to save healer, because without one you are as good as dead. So when do you go from defensive mode to offensive, and attack PC healer?
I think that proper context would be that unnamed NPC's should always try to protect named one or group leader or whatever and go into offensive mode if named NPC is stabilized, meaning he is not receiving lots of heat.
Hehe, if priest aggro is that high, raids are going to be very short.....for the players.
"Hey Jimbo, why didn't you heal me when he hit me with his super claw attack?"
"I died 1 minute ago from it just looking at me"
"Oh...I liked killing orcs better anyways, lets go"
No, I mean that the mob could be taking out the damage dealers first; the tank or mage or rogue. If he is attacking the priest non-stop, then he would die before he won the encounter, because the damage dealers are beating on him when he is attacking the priest, then the damage dealers are also beating on him when he attacks them... Now, if there is one mob, then having it take out the priest first is probably the wisest action (actually running would probably be), but with multiple mobs, all of them going for the priest first is foolish in many cases.
An intelligent mob would want to beat the encounter with as few casualties as possible. They are just like us (or should be, right?). So, sure we may take out the healer first, but possibly not always. If there are 2 mages, 2 fighters, 1 rogue, and 1 priest, and you go for the priest first, then your numbers are in serious trouble with those other characters beating on you. Even if you manage to kill the priest, the rest of the characters have hitpoints and mana left... You'd probably send someone to keep the priest busy, but if someone starts beating on you immensely and poses a bigger threat (which taunt simulates), then you will turn on that person and try to disable him.
It all depends on the circumstances. Since you can't make a mob intelligent (apparently), then you have to simulate intelligence by the aggro system. That may not always be the perfect system, but it sounds like it works pretty well right now.
I just got my beta key and am downloading currently, so I will be able to know first hand in a few hours
Note to self: do not play a healer type.
How is the crowd control in this game? It sounds to me like this could be solved if you had some good CC in your group. Is no one playing the main CC class types? Are there any?
The orc can shout kill the healer all he wants if his mates are standing there rooted or mezzed. Now good AI would be if the orcs CC'd mates then shouted back, "WTF you want me to do? I can't move!"
Now that would be cool.
Everything born must die. All that is, will come to ruin. This is the essence of Doom. So sayeth the Doomsayer.
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Everything born must die. All that is, will come to ruin. This is the essence of Doom. So sayeth the Doomsayer.
it was kinda funny the other night I was doing gnolls to get the tormentors to spawn. So we are pulling these groups of like 4-5 gnolls at a time. Now I'm a scout and we didn't have a tank but the mobs were mostly green and I had two healers. I would use my AE attacks to get and keep agro and generally there were no problems. However once in awhile a gnoll would say "Get the cleric!" and ALL the mobs would charge the cleric (actually was a druid but they are only gnolls). Anyway it was pretty funny. They didn't seem to have much agro as one AE would bring them all back on me.
One more thing on agro, I was hunting in SH at lvl 22 doing lvl 26-27 group mobs in the caves. We had a tank, paladin, two swashbucklers (me being one), and two templars. The clerics amost never got agro. Even later when we only had one cleric after one left we still did ok. Not sure if it helped but I constantly buffed the tank with a hate increaser scouts get around 21 I think...
In any event past the lower lvls I don't see healers getting agro in fights except rarely....
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Ethion
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Ethion
Here is an excellent thread on Chanters:
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=mage&message.id=10657
Hmmm, well looks like the CC types are there and ready to go. Add one of them to a group that suffering from aggro problems on the cleric and it looks like the group would be good to go.
I am glad to see it that it looks like they are making sure CC classes are important in fighting large groups. I just hope they don't make it impossible. Tactics should be more important than having any 1 type of class in a group, besides a healer.
Everything born must die. All that is, will come to ruin. This is the essence of Doom. So sayeth the Doomsayer.
________________________________
Everything born must die. All that is, will come to ruin. This is the essence of Doom. So sayeth the Doomsayer.
Well I've been working on a druid and am learning quite a bit about agro. in the lvl 13-16 level range I definitely had to learn how to manage grow. Having the tank go in and attack a group of 4 or so yellow mobs without preparation was a good way for me to die. He would run in attack and start to go down fast. Pretty much any spell would pull a bunch of the mobs on me and then it was chain heal myself and try to survive.
What I learned however is if I thorn and ward the tank first then wait till he got to about half health I could pretty much heal without any worries. Also going into the fight with regens on the tank is bad. I'm not sure but I think every tick from regen makes some hate for the healer. So if I cast both my regens and then had him go in, the mobs would peal off him shortly after the fight started and attack me. This happened even if I did nothing at all. So it looks like you just need a good strategy to manage heal agro and you are fine. I also am pretty sure that higher lvl tanks have more tools to manage agro as well.
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Ethion
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Ethion
In my opinion....
If it is going to be a game mechanic to have the mobs attack the healers first then the mobs should lose all of their defensive rolls against the fighter who is attacking them from behind. So realisticly the mob should be taking more than double damage from a tank who is attacking them from behind. This would even out the encounter and save the healers life more often.
"I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation."
Malcolm X.
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
I have to kinda agree with you. I have a lvl 16 druid too and I don't usually have issues with aggro as long as I'm grouped with, and I hate to have to say it, but competent tanks. Yes, I always Thorn and Ward the tank before the fight and for most of my experience mob groups of up to 3 that con white the tank never gets to yellow health, staying in the green with sparse heals over time and recast of ward.
To hear people complaining about aggro for healers sounds to me like they are just going in an spamming the crap out of their strongest heals. Well, what would you expect the mob or his friends to do? Get the healer! Just as it should. I've been the sole healer in many full groups (5 other players), and as long as we have 1 person pull, 1 main tank and all else assist, rarely do I ever draw aggro and does the MT dip far into yellow health. And this is with yellow con creatures. I'm enjoying the heck out of my druid and will play one at launch.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez