About the server update.

[Furryfist]

Seeing how much stuff seems to be broken and unbalanced with this new patch, I and a few others were wondering if there was any way to revert to the old code. This way, I know for a fact that the entire guild Shattered will be on test and I'm sure many others will be over there helping test this new patch. There are just Soooo many things that need fixed, it just doesn't seem like something that needs to be rushed into. 1 or 2 weeks or w/e, will most likely be plenty of time to get the majority of the bugs, and take a lot of the pressure off you devs.... Just a thought =/

[Vaion]

Seeing how much stuff seems to be broken and unbalanced with this new patch, I and a few others were wondering if there was any way to revert to the old code. This way, I know for a fact that the entire guild Shattered will be on test and I'm sure many others will be over there helping test this new patch. There are just Soooo many things that need fixed, it just doesn't seem like something that needs to be rushed into. 1 or 2 weeks or w/e, will most likely be plenty of time to get the majority of the bugs, and take a lot of the pressure off you devs.... Just a thought =/

General answer, one that most don't want to hear, no. In order for us (the devs and players) to find the majority of the bugs, we need the code to be live. The code has been sitting on the test server for months now as we combed it the best possible. However, as we have all seen, major issue slip through the cracks. In order to find and address these issues, we need the entire player base of THF, not just one or two guilds at the most (although it's appreciated for the offer).

As we all know, melee dps is less than before. Everyone may call it a nerf, we call it a fix. The dps from procs were well out of control and as thus we had to keep making events/items to match. With these changes, it opens up the chance for the devs to really balance things at a much lower scale (no more 20 million hp npcs). I know it's upsetting, or frustrating or whatever you want to call it. But it's not going away. So posting parses right now to show how low your dps has dropped won't change the fact that this is live and isn't going anywhere. I ask however, if you want to parse something because you have that itchy need to, send it to myself via PM. I will be doing a lot of rebalancing after some more of the actual bugs/errors are addressed. Having the new parses will help me with this.

So to wrap it up if you don't want to read it all. No the changes are no being rolled back unless the server stability goes completely insane (the devs will make that call). And no the proc nerfs are not going anywhere. And finally no more parse posts to show us how much your dps has changed. If you want to post a parse, hit the PM button in my user box and send it to me for balancing issues later on.

[Rex]

Thank you Vaion, that was a very eloquent explanation and one that we all appreciate. I am hoping long term that this proc change is for the better, but our collective concern for the short term is that we are currently unable to raid tiers that we have had on farm for months. I am all for toning down hp and such, as the mudflation has to stop somewhere, but you have to keep in mind the current raid tiers also need to be rebalanced with ae's and mob hp lowered significantly.

[Vaion]

Thank you Vaion, that was a very eloquent explanation and one that we all appreciate. I am hoping long term that this proc change is for the better, but our collective concern for the short term is that we are currently unable to raid tiers that we have had on farm for months. I am all for toning down hp and such, as the mudflation has to stop somewhere, but you have to keep in mind the current raid tiers also need to be rebalanced with ae's and mob hp lowered significantly.

Short term, things are going to be awkward for everyone. All we ask is that everyone be patient with the changes/issues. Most of us have been there for other code updates that cause drastic changes initially and after the dust settles everything works itself out. Am I saying that things are going to get better over night, no. Would I like them to? Hell yes.

As for the balancing, it will be taken in stride, probably starting around T5 since that is where the biggest melee vs. Caster competition begins. Will it take awhile to reach the top raid zones? Yes, but it will happen. As I said in the previous post, the best help everyone can give is to give me the most accurate 30s burn/5 min and 10 min parses from T5 and higher. Once I have enough collective information I can start looking at balancing.

[Grey]

Was it announced that this was up on test for people to give feedback?
If I had known about it I would have spent a few weeks on test to provide feedback.
Friendly request, if you guys could put it into the news section when you put a big code update onto the test server. Cant miss those posts as its on the portal main page.

I do not envy you guys the task of balancing content since just about everything is currently balanced with the old procs in mind. A lot of zones prior to the T5 level have been tweaked in the last few months and made just slightly harder.
Hopefully you do not ignore the sub T5 zones and will at least take a look at them.
As usual wont hardly effect the established players but anyone that is brand new that gives it a go is going to have a very rough time of it unless they go drop money into donation gear and that shouldn't be required to progress. This is just a precautionary posting.

:The idea of sub 20 zillion hp mobs is pretty nice btw

[Firenze]

The fact they reduced the procc rate is a good thing , it give casters a cool boost and seriously , melee dps was out of hands

good work

[antihero]

First off, I don't want this to be considered a flame or attack on THF Staff because I have enjoyed and supported this server for over a year now. I offer constructive criticism and I want to make sure nothing slips through the cracks here. It is important to me for this server to succeed and grow, and I rather enjoy my guildmates, and I would like to keep them here.

The good news in all this is caster DPS just became a bit more signifigant. The bad news is for the few classes that relied on procs for dps (Paladin comes to mind), they will be gimp until they get some lovin.

After news of some interesting encounters in the last couple of evenings, AC and/or melee mitigation/avoidance is still far from where we were before the patch. I know many people were waiting on Bront's results to see how far off AC was, but you should consider that there are less than a handful of tanks out there with 10k+ AC, while the rest of the server is average at best. AC should be tuned with the average player in mind.

No mention was made so far about the Endurance situation. I haven't seen endurance drop like this since my ranger sported a Wurmslayer on live (20.0 weight weapon iirc). If endurance use and lack of regen stands the way it is now, tanks wont be able to effectively use their defensive discs in long fights and dps wont be able to sustain the dps we used to when it was needed the most. Endurance regen/heal spells have been broken since the endurance change on live years ago.

Bottom line is, I don't want to see these encounters require a 50+ toon zerg to complete. Emu servers don't have the numbers for it.

[Lillu]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Some thoughts:

- Yes, test server with updated server code was announced many times from ooc to news update.
- Pallies aren't dps class :/
- The endurance situation will be addressed with next reboot. Overall endurance regeneration will get a 25% boost and enudance cap from items will be 60 (was 15). It's now same as hp/mana regen cap from items.
- The AC calculation formula was reverted to original, so not sure what to say there, it's how it was before.

[Rex]

I don't think the problem is AC at the moment, from our testing it seems that the focus effects for melee are not working correctly. It is hard to do direct comparisons due to a lack of parses, but at this point it looks like the dodge/parry/ ect focus effects aren't working.

[Kruggan]

Being an EQ vet since day 1 in 1999, I can definitely attest to the frustration when things get changed, and the feeling that something has been taken away that you've grown accustomed to - or when the game balance seems to be upset. Definitely. However, I wanted to simply say that I do appreciate the volunteer work that the developers are doing on The Hidden Forest content and your CONTINUED efforts to keep the game updated and non-stagnant. I mean seriously - I am still stunned there are weekly updates and zone content additions. From day one I was stunned at the amount of free content and attention to detail that THF has compared to most communities. Is it perfect? Nothing is. Neither is EQLive - far from it. However, it's an extraordinary project and when considering staring my own EQEMU server a year ago I thought - why bother - THF is available, organized and 100x better than I could ever hope to accomplish. I'm hoping to enjoy the server for a long time.

Thank you for your work.