Big changes for characters coming

[SirBruce]

Are their libraries or something full of lore?  Last bloody game that I remember just having books lying about was UO...

Actually, there were libraries in a few of the cities of EQ1. You could go there and read books that were in the library.

In EQ2, there are books that you can find sometimes that contain lore, that are quest-related.  In the cities, you can purchase books, read the lore, and they'll have a quest associated with the book that you can complete.  When you've completed one, you get a book furniture item you can place in your house for everyone to read.

I know WoW has books as well, and you can read them and have a librarian copy them, but I don't know if they ever give quests.

Bruce

[Ardent]

I know WoW has books as well, and you can read them and have a librarian copy them, but I don't know if they ever give quests.

I once spent an entire evening  reading the walls in The Neverhood.

[Aenovae]

Advancement Path: Tactics

Yesterday we discussed some of the details of Traits, one of the elements of our Advancement Path system that helps you define your character. Today we discuss a new topic... Tactics!

 

Tactics: Enemy Mastery

 

Is your character a wood elf druid with a burning hatred for orcs that dates back to her ancestors' days fighting in Crushbone? Or a barbarian shaman whose forefathers perished battling against gnolls in Blackburrow? Or an ogre berserker with a deep-seated loathing of those scaly lizardmen contaminating the Feerrott? Then our Tactics system is just what you're looking for!

 

The EverQuest II Tactics Advancement Path lets you pick certain types of enemies for which your character feels a particular dislike. By learning about these opponents, you gain special abilities that allow you and your party to do extra damage against them in battle.

 

The type of ability you get will vary based on your character's archetype:

 

Priests gain the ability to weaken their opponent's attacks
Scouts learn how to make their enemy more vulnerable
Mages earn a powerful nuke that is hard for this type of creature to resist
Fighters gain a self buff that allows them to do increased damage against this creature type

These abilities grow with your character, so they will always provide an advantage against your chosen opponents. Having multiple group members with the same type of mastery skill will make your enemies tremble at your feet!

 

Here are the first three selections your character will receive:

 

Level 12 - gnolls, orcs
Level 16 - ghosts, skeletons, zombies
Level 24 - centaurs, giants, treants

Higher-level choices will feature increasingly more exotic (and more dangerous) types of enemies to pick from.

 

When you choose an enemy, you receive a tome that gives you background lore on that creature type and begins your quest to learn more about them. As you defeat these enemies, you find items that you can examine to gain knowledge of their tactics. Part of your quest will also involve besting a number of these creatures on the field of battle. You can track your progress toward mastery with a progress bar displayed in your quest helper window.

 

Choosing your own worst enemies is yet another way EverQuest II lets you individualize your character. Fans of role-playing will especially enjoy sharing tales of why their character despises goblins or centaurs. Other players will simply savor the tactical advantage these abilities give them in combat. With our Tactics system, the choice is yours to make!

 

Tomorrow's update will feature racial Traditions, which allow you to choose beneficial abilities unique to your race.

============================
Moorgard
EQII Community Guy

Seems like this feature is already in the game.  But I guess now you can only pick a few racial enemies instead of being able to master all of them in time.  That's too bad - I was looking foward to earning mastery for each monster type on my own.  Boo.

[SirBruce]

Yeah, that's strange, are they removing the current LORE quests???

Bruce

[Trippy]

It's a little different in that Priests and Scouts get abilities that affect the enemy in some way rather than doing straight damage like they do now.

[Sky]

Still, looks like they addressed a lot of the suck in the first game

*groan*

[HaemishM]

Wow, tactics is just... that's even more bland and boring than the Traits. I think I just had a reverse erection.

As for the mapping options, I'd much prefer if they gave characters who wanted it a map-making skill, allowing them to sell the maps, etc. THAT would fit the roleplaying aspect sorely lacking in most MMOG's to a tee. I don't think it matters whether or not someone like Darniaq can do one on their own, or if the fan site community will make their own maps. Let them. As it is right now, the fan sites like Allakhazam's and EQMaps will be vitally needed. It isn't like the lack of a map or automapping feature in EQ1 stopped anyone from using maps. I used them all the time, printed off the web; in some instances, especially when leading a raid, they were vital. With zones as big as they've chosen to make, those maps will be a feature that is much needed and most will use them. I'm not sure how this could be a hard feature to implement, but given the lack of it, it must be pretty difficult for the current team to do. Again, I'm not asking for radar or even information the character wouldn't have; I just want to be able to get back to where I was without stumbling around for an hour.

[Soukyan]

AO did maps quite well. You had a map skill and you had to purchase maps for areas. When you purchased a map, the level of your map skill determined how much information the map displayed. They could even do something like WoW and still have players purchase maps. Have a player buy a map for an area and have the general outline. Then as a player travels around the zone, areas of the map become uncovered and show landmarks, etc. that the player finds. This is very easy to do and I'm surprised that they haven't done it. It would be a nice feature and above are just two easy and intuitive ways that they could implement it.

[Kageru]

SOE sold a book of EQ1 maps, which did little more thant cause the guy who did EQatlas to quit in disgust. It's vaguely possible they might be planning to do the same with EQ2, disallowing in game mapping to make it more commercially viable. It certainly fits in with their, "... and for another 99 cents" revenue model.

[Big Gulp]

Still, looks like they addressed a lot of the suck in the first game

*groan*

Ugh.  Yeah, sorry about that, completely unintentional punnage.

[AOFanboi]

AO did maps quite well. You had a map skill and you had to purchase maps for areas. When you purchased a map, the level of your map skill determined how much information the map displayed.

Sort of correct. How much info is displayed depends on what "upgrades" (with skill requirements) you install: directional arrow (25), machines (50), people (80), monsters (130) and side... hell, noone bother with that.

One strange thing about the AO maps is that each side (clan, omni, neutral) has a set of starting maps they load in one go as early as level 1. These can include some maps that, if purchased separately, have high skill requirements. Sounds strange, but it's reasonable that people of the given side needs those maps early on.

Also, they haven't been updated as the game has progressed (e.g. the Tir city map does not show the new bridge on the west side, nor the new teleporter locations - it still shows one teleporter on top of the basic store).

But all in all, AO has the best map system in the games I've tried.

[rscott]

This all sounds vaguely like the champions/gurps system of advantages.  However i'd prefer it if these were all available at character creation.  And we should be able to take a DISadvantage, in order to gain an additional advantage.

[jpark]

I looked at the posted examples of racial abilities.  Neat stuff to be sure - but the project management issues here is already becoming case material for an MBA program.

The Barbarian can track, the Elf can boost his power, and the dwarf can... summon ale.

These guys in panic mode.  It's rather ironic of the posted examples of racial abilities - they did not mention Ogre or Troll.

They don't want to be to obvious about their 180 degree turn here - does anyone recall SOE saying that the Ogre resistance to frontal stun or the Troll regeneration of EQ would never be in EQ2?  Hard not to introduce those changes now considering the racial abilities (dwarf aside lol) now described for other classes.

Again I support the changes.  But it's panicked and rushed and I am idly amused.

[Trippy]

They don't want to be to obvious about their 180 degree turn here - does anyone recall SOE saying that the Ogre resistance to frontal stun or the Troll regeneration of EQ would never be in EQ2?

Yup, and it's still in their race FAQ, hence my snide comment earlier.

[Alkiera]

Admittedly, they only posted 1 ability for a few races, when each race supposedly has 10 to choose from.  The samples seem to run the gamut from RP-use-only to mildly useful in combat to fairly useful.  Really, did you expect anything else from a sample?

I think this, to a certain extent, defeats the point of getting rid of the race distinctions... they seemed so intent on that for EQ2, and now they're going back to the EQ1 method, with added grind.

What I wanna know is, why, if members of my race have the inherent ability to hide, do I not have it from level 1, but instead have to wait till I'm high enough level, and then choose it?  Racial benefits chould be active when you choose your race, not some long time later.  This kinda junk is turning me off to the game, really...  Tho WoW's silly update scheme isn't encouraging me to play that, either.  Guess I'll keep paying Cryptic for CoH.

--
Alkiera

[dusematic]

Now, a couple things of note....
1) Stats do not matter at all in this game. 1 stam = 2hps. 1 int = 1 mana. Stat gear is usually fairly small. So, giving a class the ability to gain +5 int or stam or whatever is a red herring aimed to fool people. Its doing nothing in practice, though it looks like a change. So, thats not fooling me. (unless they alter the stat formulas).

2) The ability to train in specialized area is a red herring. There is no difference between this and upgrading your spells/powers to a higher level. This isnt fooling me either. It sounds like a change, but all it is adding more efficient abilities to every class, the pace of combat already is too easy and fast. This is nothing.

3) Racial traditions sound good. They were discussing these not long ago and had decided not to implement anything that might shake up balance. So, that either means A) theyve changed their mind or B) the racial traditions are so minute in nature (i.e. Iksar regen/Ac bonus) that they do not significantly matter. Juries out on this one, could be good.

4) Enemy mastery is not new. This has been in the game. Basically, you get a quest to learn about a monster type (skeles for example). You then have to fetch 10 or so lore rare item drops off skeles. Upon completion, you get a "title" and a new power that is usable against skeletons only and does bane damage. While this is pretty neat and an example of a fun little side quest, its not new. No idea why they stuck this in here.

SUMMARY

Im skeptical on the majority of fronts because outside of racial bonuses, this stuff doesnt really appear to be significant., no matter how they try to spin in it.