Kudane's Journal 3 - New & Different
 

EQ2 introduced some new mechanics and functions to the game that we have not previously seen. I am going to try and point out a few.

Solo or Grouped Encounters
All fights now are called "encounters". This partly because mobs now come in two forms, "solo" and "grouped". Yes, just like us some mob group up to do things. When you attack a grouped mob, all his group-mates no mater how far away will jump in. The good news is, when you target a grouped mob, you will see a target ring on all his group-mates so you can see how many you got. The mobs will say "group" or "solo" when you target them.

Locked Encounters
While some hate this, others love it. Basically when you (or your group) starts an encounter, its yours. No one outside your group can buff, heal, kill-steal, or affect your fight in anyway...unless you use the function "Yell for help" (see below). Then you can get healed and mobs killed. Some guards won't even help unless you "Yell for Help". As others have pointed out Kill-Stealing is a thing of the past, BUT mob stealing is even easier, since you can just lock 2 or 3 in a row and kill them at your own pace.

"Yell for Help"
This Button does exaclty what it says. It tells the world your in trouble. The other thing is does is break the encounter so you get ZERO XP, and other people can finish off the mob(s) that you were losing to.

Upside: This is a very clear way of letting people know you need help, and/or the guards.

Downside: If you hit this by accident, you and your group gets NO XP, even if you finish off all the mobs by yourself.

Sidenote: I have had many newbie casters/priest hit this not realizing the full function and thinking it has the same function as /Y in EQLive. I recommend moving this button away from your normal hotkeys, and making sure everyone understands how it works.

Spawn Point Agro
Mobs now only agro around the area they are suppose to be in. So If someone runs past you with 10 mobs on them from the other side of the zone. They will not attack you unless you are either right by the spawn they came from OR you attack them as they walk back to thier correct spot. Trains are a thing 500 years in the past (aka EQLive).

I will add more if I think of them. These were the basics that I could remember at almost 2am. Sorry its not more of a "Journal" But I am going to make a new character tomorrow to re-test the newbie levels. I have heard they added yet some more content. Will post something after.

Added 10/18
Death & Death Penality
When you die you are given a choice of places to resurface, or you can lay there and wait for a rez. If you release you take an "XP Penality" this is shown by a red bar on your XP bar. Also your equipment takes a 10% reduction in its "repair state" (which can be fixed easily at any repair person, and its really very cheap, for newbies its in copper). When you get back to where you died, you will find a ghost of you laying on the ground. this is your "shard" and when you click it, well over 1/2 of your XP debt is paid. there is no "looting" of a body any more.

Sidenote: When in a group, the entire group shares and equal percentage of the penalty of any deaths suffered by group-mates. I have heard of 1 person dying in agroup and having NO penality after recovering thier shard (ie 1/6 of the penality was less than the shard paid back). there is a lot of controversy over "shared XP Debt" but over all I think it will be a good thing. but that is my humble opinion.

/bow

Kudane

Great read! Thanks again Kudane!

add on
 

I also wanted to point out, if you Yell for help and break the encounter. You still can not be healed by somone outside your group.
Just wanted to clear this up.
I LOVE the con system, its Great !

I have personally healed 2 people that yelled for help. so I know you can. they changed the priest spells this last patch to allow you to heal someone not in combat.

Cool, Thanks Kudane!

I'm wondering though...say your in combat and someone does mess up and hit the HELP button.... is it possible to re-lock the encounter? Say for instance Person A and Person B.

A - aah man, this is slow goin...(starts randomly clicking stuff like an idiot)

B- Cool, found some, pulling them our way now!

A- aiight, im ready (clicky, clicky, clicky)

B- What tha!!!!

A- Ooops, my bad... go get them again

nope, once you click it it's done, no loot, no exp

Gawd, the changes...I'm just really impressed that SOE/EQ2 team are taking all these aswome ideas from other current mmorpgs and have put them in together.

I see alot of similarties between WoW and EQ2, and I'm torn since a few friends want to play WoW, but I hate WoW's graphics...

I'll probably end up playing both, but end up insane from the lack of sleep split between 3 mmorpgs :p

Keep up the aswome work on the info!

Just a quick correction:

The words 'group' or 'solo' that appear under a mobs name on the target window only refer to the intended difficulty of the encounter - not whether or not multiple mobs are 'grouped'.

There are 'group' encounters that have a single mob and 'solo' encounters that have multiple mobs.

thats... interesting. I dont see the point behind that. You would need a group I would imagine if it was con'ing orange or red ;) for a solo. But the color should indicate that not "group" or whatever.

Well, as long as it balances out... I mean if you have multiple mobs that you can solo, then the system works technically. Not saying that you will survive pulling more than one mob even if a single one is soloable, sounds almost like a design flaw, but I haven't played it so I couldn't really tell you. It very well may be that you can solo a group of mobs... Interesting indeed.

I believe the controversy is due in part that certain people are plain and simply not adept at games like this thus they do things that will threaten the partys well being and hence everyone suffers from that persons foolishness. Perhaps they dont know how to heal properly? Perhaps they start a fight they should'nt have? Who knows. I'd be a tad upset if an idiot in my group was at fault for getting a couple of group mates killed and I had to suffer for it.

On the other hand, I see this as an excellent way to make sure the GOOD players consider everyones well being first. It also lightens the load for those poor classes that get whiped out frequently. I'm personally for it because most of those monkey players are gone by mid levels which is where people will be really greatful for this new system in the first place.

Behind
 

Man I feel like Im behind on reading the posts, been needing to work overtime to support my upcoming habit, just cant wait...

Immersion
 

Is it just me or do you lose some immersion in the game whan you see mobs tailored for specific people.

Isn't the whole fun of the game discovering what mobs you can kill and the ones you need help with?

I think right now the game holds your hands too much.

Vamp

hmm I do think that the penatly should B higher for dying..

Maybe loose a level, or some permanet Con points (do you use Con in Eq2??)

Hoping this is meant to be funny, but in case its not...

Did you even play EQ?

Granted, the penalty in this is'nt NEAR as bad as it used to be. If anyone got past level 30 in EQ then you know how painful dying could be. I had a friend that fell asleep once around his level 50's and his character was bound inside a hot zone where he could easily die if someone brought a train. Sure enough... he woke up the next day 4 levels lower. To put that in perspective guys... for casual gamers, thats months of lost work. For many people, it was the reason they QUIT the game. SOE does'nt want people quitting cause they kicked your butt so hard you did'nt want to even bother spending the time to get your exp back. I nearly quit once because I could'nt get to a bound spot for my ogre warrior. Lost thousands of platinum in armor and a level to boot trying to get back. I was a very very pissed player and there was NOTHING I could do to get back to my corpse.

I think the penalty now is a tad on the light side but thats probably because I'm a hardcore gamer and I love the feel of pressure to NOT DIE. All in all though, I think this is a definite improvement.

Originally Posted by Wiking
hmm I do think that the penatly should B higher for dying

Yes Yes ..Let's make worse penalties for dying ...hmmm ,ok yes got it ...SOE staff members come to your house and beat up your dog when you die and kick you in the jimmies repeatedly......if you die again the burn down your house...after that hmmmmmm..guess they'd have to start removing fingers and stuff ....cannot wait to get into THAT beta

LOL, Coffee you cracked me up with that one.

Dont Give Them Anymore Ideas! Dear Lord!

Somebody please, rezz my fingers back. :p Seriously, in eq1 I was standing in a town, for a few days. I lost 3 levels, made me so mad. :mad:

group or solo
 

Most of the time its a case of who, what, and when . lol I've personaly soloed with my crusader some group encounters with multiple mobs and had trouble in groups with group encounters of single mobs. Its a guideline depending on equipment, and whether or not the group mates are at full potential, wether you can win. Oh and for those that like to solo there is plenty of solo out there.

The new death system sounds good to me... I could see wanting to slap some fool in my group who does something stupid and dies making us all owe xp but i can live with it... btw anyone wonder what was over the cliff in Paineel and get too close to the edge? LOL its kinda slippery and nothing down there is that interesting 8)~ I figured it was a 7 day wait but I got a nice Necro in pok to summon me. So it ended up not being that bad.

I'm really looking forward to a new adventure and new places to hunt... Are they using a expedition stye instance area like in OoW? I havnt played in OoW cause I knew I was playing EQ 2 soon but I heard it was cool. Can anyone describe the instance areas at all? Are they like ldon type dungeons?.. I think that would be neat to get your own adventure without the time limits or people running past to get ahead of your group! I have read some of the stuff on this but nothing is really clear on how or where you get these instances. Do you get one just by entering a "cave" zone or you gotta talk to a recruiter or what?

Thanks for letting me ramble... just waiting to play and very interested in how it works. Sorry if this topic has already been posted.