Feeding the Troll

Feeding the Troll is a game community devoted to EverQuest and it's massive population of "trolls". A high end raiding news site by nature, but also full of EverQuest related information... If you enjoy EverQuest or Trolls, you may want to visits this digg!

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FeedingTheTROLL has MOVED!

Feeding the Troll

I've released the beta version of my new webiste and you can find it at the link above. Please come join my new community and I look forwards to publishing quality webspace.

-funk

I'm tired of the neverending cycle of APPS!

Apps, noobs, grunts, soon-to-be-corpses, no matter what you call them, a one point everyone joins a guild in EverQuest. These people are introduced via a plethora of different options, but usually they have to go through some sort of "test period". But somehow it seems that my guild is always full of apps! Why? Because once you get done with the app period, you start the first day of the rest of your life with a guild... or the rest of your life that you'll be in a guild!

Let's go back to the view of the app. You are an app, you just joined your new guild. As you join there is a rush of excitement, and an onslaught of new people to meet and learn about. Just like a family, most guilds run with some sort of moralistic code of ethics. Of course, this code of ethics was designed by Joe Guildleader and will probably be full of really weird rules. But, since you have agree'd to join this guild (in hopes of fun, fortune, or friends (the f's)), you promise to follow this code of ethics.... right?

During the app period, you will always run into the guy that thinks it's his job to give all the new guys shit. "The App Bully" is a typical role for a senior member in a guild. The idea it to weed out the emotionally weak, and the temperamental from the guild while they are still in the app period. But to the App the Bully is really just some asshole that gets his kicks by treating the new people like shit. Let it be said, there is a good reason to allow the bullies, but if a bully is too rough, you'll find that people get the wrong impression of the new guild's atmosphere.

I always suggest that apps be ready to devote a large amount of playtime to EverQuest when they decide to Apply to a major guild. What is a major guild? Right now a major guild is defined as any guild that has defeated a Solteris event (except for Club Fu... they don't get to qualify). Major guilds usually have the strictest of guild guidelines. Also, major guilds expect a high volume of raid attendance, so apps need to demonstrate that they can attend/pay attention to raids that last long periods of time. Once an app demonstrates their ability to show up, most guilds will accept the app... regardless of gear/skill/class ... the key to getting into a major guild is totally attendance.

Another major important skill for an App to demonstrate is their ability to pay attention. Many players start off in guilds that are WAY ahead of the player's ability level. Don't worry, just pay attention, find someone who DOES know what is going on and politely ask for help/tips. There are always "App Mentors" in guilds. The mentor is the opposite of the Bully. Mentor's keep an eye on apps and make sure they are learning the guild's ways. Mentors also keep an eye our for the morale of the Apps. The mentor provides the motivational support for Apps while they suffer through their trial period. But the mentors must be careful, apps that receive to much support tend to be "baby/pussies/weaklings" and no major guild wants to worry about the weak apps. Just like fish, we toss the small fry back.

If an App can demonstrate their ability to show up and pay attention, then more than likely they will earn a full member status in the guild. But that is just the beginning of the guild life. The app phase can be painful and frustrating, but it comes with the "f's."

Now, if I could only figure out how to keep those full members in my guild so we don't have to keep getting Apps! I guess that is an article for another day!

-Funk

Wycca, the Itemfixer

Greetings,

Last weekend I sent an email over to my favorite dev and asked about the Solteris item pools. He responded, "been working on them, expect to see some changes soon" and I thought, well, "some" is probably not enough.

Solteris is a GREAT raiding zone. It's hard, it's full of new and innovative content. The story line and theme is very solid. The few things that it lacks are easy to look over, except for the item drops. The item drops were obviously rushed, anyone and their mother can spot the item creation logic patterns. But, I'm a forgiving gamer, as long as the items get altered to an acceptable state.

Wycca, monk of triality, has been tossing out a lot of great ideas for the next set of item revamps. Most people will never know the amount of effort Wycca puts into his player feedback, but I will speak up and publically thank him for his efforts.

"THANK YOU WYCCA"

As far as the specific item changes, I can't comment there, but I can say I personally hope to see more focus effects, maybe some PoR' era aura clickies, +skill damages, and perhaps even a few other nifty bells and whistles. I also hope to see the 2handed weapons altered a tad as well... mainly just because they have been neglected long enough. Sorry 1handers, you guys are fine!

Well, I gotta get back to work now, I'll try to post something else later this week... but, don't hold me to it!

-funk

I found time!

Greetings!

By now I must have very few viewers. First of all let me thank anyone that is still reading this blog! I'll offer my explantion first! In the last few weeks I've started a new job, moved houses, had my account stolen (and returned) and basically only have a few hours of free time a night, which I've been using for things other than my blog!

Now, that I've said that, the good news is now that I'm settling in, I'll be closing down this blog!

That is right! I'll be closing down the blog and opening up a brand new website. I've been developing the new site privately as of late and I must say, it's coming along well! There will be the same old crappy swampfunk articles... but with forums, chat, and a few other nifty bells and whistles.

Oh, and I'll totally be posting a lot more. I have a powerleveling guide coming out to release, a qvic flagging guide, and a new player guide all coming out soon!

Now for the news!

Solteris News...

Triality has finished Solteris and recieve the title "of the Daybringers"

Township Rebellion (sour grapes) will be downing event 7 soon enough I'm sure

Momentum has progressed to event 6

Raging Fury is now on event 3...


There have been some pretty big announcements in EverQuest lately. The next expansion was announced... hurray for more Prismatic Dragon Chaos! The EverQuest hall of fame will be released tomorrow... and it better have me in it!!

Test Server News...

AA window is upgraded
Overhaste fix on for testing
New AA starting to surface
Solteris event 7 was nerfed


Now for the future news....

Merloc upgrades Solteris 2h weaponry
Merloc upgrades half of the items from solteris
Merloc redoes the focus effects for raid level solteris gear

-or-

Merloc is fired!

lol, just kidding, nothing but love for the noobie dev.

Anyways, I'll be posting here more now, since I have some time to finally focus here!

keep it up! and thank you!
-Swampfunk

Stratics HoC Dev Chat

http://eq.stratics.com/content/hoclogs/20070516.php

here is the link....

Lucy's List of Solteris Armor

this was a request from Pidagog.... the greatest ranger in the world....

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/itemlist.html?searchtext=energeiac

:)

or just ranger armor:;;;;
http://lucy.allakhazam.com/itemlist.html?searchtext=gleaming+ener


use lucy!

-funk

Fabled Video Results!

Whelp! I didn't even make the top 10! oh well! Trolls aren't really the best artists...

If you'd like to see the official SOE release follow this link: http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/news_article.vm?id=50435

I really enjoye the winner, and I'd like to say I called it way in advance! (seriously, I believe if you search through my old post there is a specific spot where I said I think the winner's name would start with a Q.)

I'll be posting some updates on uber guild news later. Also, going over some of my forcasts for the next expansion... soo stay tuned, you can see the future of eq!

lol

-funk

Swampfunk is a pirate?

Yo ho!

And since I am, I'd like to direct the attention of my readers to a story from the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/technology/03code.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

It's a funny story of pirates, lawyers, and a giant middle finger directed at the encryption of movies. The entertainment industry will have a crazy battle to fight if they ever want to prevent people from sharing films.

But, this has nothing to do about EverQuest! So, back to your gaming!

-Pirate Funk

If I were a Dev for a day!

EverQuest offers the best 54 person content available on the market. It also has the AA point system which keeps players playing. But EverQuest lacks a strong single group game play and a system of competition. EverQuest also lacks something that helps players to feel a skill ranking in the community. The closest thing to a ranking system currently is the Magelo Rankings and EQPlayers. The popularity of these ranking systems proves that the players do desire to compete with each other. It is unfeasible to fix and balance the current PvP system. Instead, I suggest a system that pits two groups against each other in instanced content, competitive PvE. These two groups would be placed in a identical instanced dungeon and would race to complete the goal of that dungeon. This system would offer players a place to meet, compete, and win loot in a short amount of time. There would be greater rewards, rankings, loot, and experience for winning a challenge. This system would not require any drastic changes to EverQuest game engine, the mechanics can be already found in the instanced system and the LDON ranking system. My design proposal is the EverQuest Dungeon Challenge.

Dungeon Challenges would require only one small static zone to serve as a meeting hub. This hub would allow players to gather, seek more players, prepare for a challenge, and find another group to challenge. Since all the challenges would be instanced, I believe it would be easy to also setup a system for cross server challenges. This change could really improve the community from a competitive and social stand point and attract a new crowd of players. An all-server leader board gives new players a way of meeting each other and gives successful players a bit of bragging rights. The Dungeon Challenges could be a recreation/imitation of any event that EverQuest has ever used. Building challenges to be similar to previous content would save time in design and creation. I will discuss a few of the various suggestions I would make if a system like this was ever implemented.

There would be three fields of Challenge; the first challenge is called the Skill Challenge. These challenges place two groups of any six members in a monster mission aimed at being completed in about an hour. Since monster missions have completely controlled conditions, the levels, gear, and AA of the players would not matter. The design of skill challenges would force the players to do a set of tasks that require real EverQuest related skills. A simple example challenge could be setting up a typical tank, slower, puller, healer, dps, and crowd control situation with a limited amount of tools. Since both teams have the exact same tools, the players’ skill would be the defining factor. The first team to finish would receive a superior reward for winning and the losing team would win a lesser reward. I will cover the loot system in great detail later. They would also be rewarded with the proper amount of experience for completing a skill challenge.

Currently in EverQuest, most content seems to be designed to take two, three, or more hours to complete. And while that is exactly what some players want, many other players want an activity that is quick: they don’t have the time to fight across a zone to get to another zone to get to another spot. They want to log in, find a group quickly, do something productive to get a reward (or a positive effect of some sort), and they want to do it in about an hour and a half. I propose that another style of challenge; a fast paced, short, yet exciting mission, what I have dubbed “DPS Challenge”.

A DPS Challenge could be any variety of fights aimed at testing the various styles of combat in EverQuest. These challenges would be designed for completion in around thirty minutes. There could be challenges aimed at one single rough and tough boss, or waves of attacking foes, or challenges in the fields of ice, fire, poison, disease, healing, curing, mezzing, or any other particular skill that the classes have. Basically you would have groups being formed for specific and very specialized tasks. Rarely seen models of bosses from older content could be recycled in as the various challenges (I think it would be very funny to get the Quarm challenge). The content would be properly tuned for a 6 man group, but you could keep the flavor of the original boss intact. Since these challenges would be short, they reward very little experience and only 1 loot per challenge (I will cover the loot system later).

In comparison to the short, and yet fast paced DPS Challenges, I would also introduce a third category of challenge; the Epic Challenge. An Epic Challenge would be similar to the nature of the LDON raid dungeon. If you take a really well geared level 75 group and attempt to do a LDON raid, you will get a similar product to what I would develop. These challenges would be three part dungeons involving scripts, puzzles, and various other obstacles (all using the current tools EverQuest already has in place). The goal of these challenges is to place the players, using their current characters, in a dungeon where they race to fight through a dungeon script to accomplish a list of tasks given to them. The time length to complete these dungeons would be around two hours, but it would be easy to add a few longer duration challenges for the especially hardcore matches. For each of the three parts of the dungeon that the teams complete they would recieve one loot. When each part of the dungeon is defeated there would need to be a mechanism to compare the status of the two groups; if winning they get a superior loot, if losing, the lesser loot for that leg of the challenge. These challenges would have the side benefit of giving the most experience (large number of foes to fight and defeat) and the most loot, but they take the longest to do.

A major problem currently in EverQuest is the loot gap between the high end players and the more casual players. If my proposal were created I would make sure that the loot that came from these events would be based off of the difficulty of the event (similar idea to the MPG trials loot system), giving everyone a chance to earn gear that they deserve. Groups will be able to read the description of a challenge before accepting it. The players will see what group (names, levels, AA, guild tag) is challenging them and the Dungeon Challenge they are being challenged on. One of the important factors would be the difficulty rating of the events. A simple rating of hard, medium, and easy in the description could let the players know how tough an event will be in comparison to their group’s level. Hard events could be aimed and matched to the current high end content, these events would be very difficult for anyone that doesn’t have the best gear and AA to complete, yet still difficult for those that event is designed for. The Medium rating would be more toned down events, designed with a more average player in mind. And finally the easy events could be designed for the less experienced players. There would be a variety of events, aimed at the various tiers of player strength; e.g. events that are aimed at Ashengate (75 Hard) Demiplane (75Medium/70 Hard), Anguish (70 Medium), Tacvi (68 hard) Qvic (65 hard), Time (65 medium), Elemental (65 easy), Luclin (60 hard), Velious (60 medium), and Kunark (60 easy), and so on.

The quality of loot would be determined by the challenge difficulty and the position the group finished. For example Group A challenges Group B on DPS Challenge: Ashengate Challenge. Ashengate Challenge is a level 75, Hard Event. Group A beats Ashengate first and wins a greater reward, group B gets a lesser reward when they finally beat Ashengate. Group A’s greater reward would be around 85% as effective as the current Ashengate raiding gear since they just completed a task that was aimed to be a challenge for a raiding single group. Group B lost, and will get a reward that is still 70% as nice as raiding gear, since they still managed to complete that exact same difficult task. Since that was a DPS challenge, and it only took 20-30 minutes, the groups will only get 1 loot. But don’t forget! Group A now has bragging rights for beating Group B (and the ranking boards will show that). The loot and gear should be inferior to real raid loot (but better than the current gear gap). I proposed 15%, but that is just a theoretical number and a real balance could be figured out once the difficulty of the events is determined.

The sense of competition and ability to gain loot via an alternative mean could attract a whole new crowd of players. EverQuest lacks a good method of player vs. player competition; the Dungeon Challenge system would fill this gap. There are many benefit of a system like this: All the content is instanced, making it easy to add, modify, or improve challenges. You can incorporate old unused models into the challenges in a fresh new way. You can incorporate older content flags into the challenge system to give more incentive to do older flag content (e.g. if you don’t have the Plane of Time flag you can’t request the Quarm challenge, but you could still be challenged to it).

The ability to gain loot in a single group setting is also a crucial part of this proposal. Currently, the lack of solid single group gear has become a sour spot in EverQuest. The MPG Trials of Omen of War really did a good job of challenging and rewarding the single group and it was very popular in the player community for this alternate form of progression (opposed to the raiding path). Since these challenges are actually two group events (even though they are competing, it still takes 2 groups), there is justification for giving loot that is superior to the current static content rewards. The Dungeon Challenge system offers the competitive player a way to progress through a variety of challenging and fun content in less than two hours. This will attract the players that cannot commit 30-40 hours a week raiding into EverQuest; it will also give an alternative form of competition and progress. Lockout timers can prevent abusive players from gaining too much, too fast. There is a field of competitive players that wishes to progress and they wish to compare themselves to the best of the game. The Dungeon Challenge system also offers the raider a chance to compete with other guilds (something that raiding guilds don’t get to do much), perhaps even with teams from other servers. A true ranking system would lead to greater competition and perhaps a larger crowd of players.

I want to recreate the instanced dungeon crawl; the idea is to give the players an alternative form of progression, a new form of competition, and still force them do the same sort of challenges that the raiding guilds have been doing for years. This will allow players to see the best part of EverQuest, a part that many have not seen. By challenging players with specific content, the development team can reward the players with loot that is tuned to difficulty of the event. Since these events revolve around two groups, there would be an added bonus for being able to bring together two groups. Even though a challenge is a competition, it should still be treated as a two group event (a neglected content type in EverQuest). The best part of this proposal is truly how easy a system like this would be to implement, it uses game mechanics that are already in place. There is a beauty about being able to sit down for two hours after dinner and complete something in EverQuest. I believe this could attract a very large crowd of players. It could offer an alternative form of progress for players to work on, without forcing the huge amount of time for raiding, (but yet the raiding guilds would still have the edge). This is a system of PvP without ever swinging a sword at another player, a true and thrilling system of competitive PvE that no other MMO on the market offers.

Producer's Letter

http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/news_article.vm?id=50421

Follow that link to see the latest Producer's Letter from EverQuest's Cliny Worley. It really wasn't an interesting read. In short he says, "oh hi! sorry we screwed up a few things, we'll fix that in the future" ... "oh yea, next expansion is in November... and will be a yearly cycle release during november!"

Oh wow that's weird, a yearly cycle release schedule... who was the guy saying that it needed to be changed over a year ago? ME! Who was the one that predicted that would change the release cycle this expansion! ME!!! So, in short, you guys should always listen to my EQ predictions...lol

What does this mean to the gamers of everquest? well it means next year is going to be a LOOONG year. Swapping from 6 month expacs to 12 months means that everything should slow down.... I'd expect to see a Solteris 2.0 raid designed... something that soo hard that it takes the ubers a full 12 months to beat it.

What I wonder about the most is how will SoE keep people interested with events and shit during the year... and with the extra time, what will we be seeing Developers doing with that time? Will they be fixing shit? I doubt it....

Truth is, I'm probably more scared of this change, than I am happy. If SOE keeps dropping the ball like they have been since Omens of War... then I really worry for the future of EQ.... but if they take a card from that uber MMO WoW, then I think we might start seeing an improvement. Either way, it's change, and hopefully it is for the better.

Volt the Enchanter

This post goes out to a very special enchanter. Volt on Maelin.

Gratz you loot whore, enjoy being a casual... I hope you die of a very nasty STD involving open wounds on your very small manhood.

To all people who read this... send a [t maelin.volt some evening.... call him a random name... or send tells to an alt of his " rado or voltran "... they are both his equally lame alts... anyways.... send a tell and call this noobshit a good name for me... cause he deserves it!

So Volt, enjoy all your ninja stolen gear, hope you die!

0funk

How to get EverQuest going again.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=110810

Today, an interesting post caught my eye. "Should EQ be free to play?" At first I thought to myself that this was going to be some half baked suggestion that the game is old and needs to be free now... or something dumb....

Instead I found a really well thought out suggestion... make original EQ free to play. Allow all of the original 50 levels of content to be open to the public and free to anyone to play. charge a subscription for anything after 50...

The beauty of this is many fold... The current free month is really just not enough to establish a strong feeling for EverQuest. Not only that, but the best part of EQ is after level 50.... and there would be a constant supply of players trying out the game.

Of course there would be the odd ball, "I'm not gonna pay for this" types that live an entire life at levels 1-50... and of course there would have to be the "get a subscription" spam to anyone who was playing 1-50 for free...

But the idea is EverQuests 1-50 population is weak, this is a way to improve it and attract new players at the same time. There is no hope for EQ if we cannot improve the current 1-75 grind. The populations are low, and many new players are simpley not able to find groups to progress through the early stages of the game. But make the 1-50 content free to all and you will have a decent sized surge of players in that content area... I'm not sure how many people would play EQ if it were free from 1-50.... but I'd consider the amount to be fairly high.

The real question would be the free -> paying user turnover rate. But I believe firmly that EverQuest sells itself. Once players have a chance to level through the first 50 levels with a healthy community, there will be a bound with the game.

I can only guess at the technical diffaculties of implementing a system like this to the EQ billing system...

I would think there would need to be other limitations for the system... but I really like the concept of the entire thing.

Ok... that's my highlight for the day!!

Game ON!

-s.funk

Overseer of the Crypt: Fixed!

Cheer and rejoice, you can once again defeat the Overseer of the Crypt event of FC2.

But that's not all! They reduced the duration and diffaculty of the event. There are a few dangerous traps now with the gremlins, but with a few good wizards you can pwn the pesk quickly.

In Solteris news...

TR has beat event 3,4,5 now
Crimson Tempest beat event 1
Triton beat event 1
Raging Fury beat event 1

It looks like event 1 is going down now... atleast 5 guilds have beat it... and from what I can guess, events 2-4 aren't as rough as event 1... but maybe that's just a load of hot air!

The Wizards are still pissed about the insta nuke nerf...but, well, I really don't think they are going to see a reversal here. At the very best, I think wizards might be able to hope for a bigger adjustment to the Etheral Conflag spell...

What have I been up to?

I work on my alt Gatorfunk?

Who is Gatorfunk? a troll beastlord!

But swampfunk I thought you said beastlords suck? I did, they do suck, I only created the alt to learn more about the class so I could talk with the dev team about the issues with the class.

Plus, I love troll beastlords... just for the gator pet... which is missing atm, too...

Ok... that is all you get to know about me!

See you soon!

What is today's date?

Greetings!

Today I'll keep my posting short. There was another patch, to basically patch the last patch that they borked up. Oh well, 2 patches a week isn't soo bad. Atleast they are seriously fixing stuff for once.

It's better than when I was making this >> http://71.39.201.210/Stuff/changethesystem.JPG << cartoon a few months ago.

Berserker Class item will have Fero 7 instead of Cleave 7... Merloc was a tad confused about our class armor in TSS.

But I'm pretty happy that he is finally changing stuff to the way it should be!

There was a post on the ranger's outrider place...http://eqoutrider.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2259... some of my trusted friends asked me to pimp the link. Personally, I didn't read it, mainly cause Nend is a hella hater.... (somehow still thinks rangers are nerfed cause of me or something... loonies)...

You'll be hearing about how Momentum beat Sisters in Solteris next week!

Also, started my next game video... but this time I don't have to follow EQ's contest rules... if I could only figure why everyone says the brightness is off on my other video...

Perhaps Windows Movie Maker isn't the best editor!

Have a good day, make sure to enjoy, it's a special time of year!

-funky

Post Patch Notes!

I had some spare time today, so I thought I'd polish up on my MS PAINT skillz....

So, today's patch had some exciting parts!

First of all, Druid's got their dps increased... in the form of a new Fire nuke with dot componet...

Wizard's had their insta casts nerfed, but had their Ethereal Conflag spell improved...

(was like 5% damage changes and 12 % mana effeciency changes...nerf!)

The class items were changed...check it out!

I'm missing a few still! Sorry, but only was able to find these before I had to get to raids...

I haven't had a chance to test the the new Vet AA yet, so if anyone has any good first impressions please let me know!

Alrighty, gotta go raid!

May the funk be with you!

Swampfunk's Pre-Patch Predictions

Hello all my loyal readers!!

I hope anyone who downloaded my fabled video enjoyed it! I was surprized that video editing isn't as painful as I thought it would be. It was more of a pain in the ass to think up a story line and somehow link it to game footage...

I did get to see some of the competition.. and I gotta say, I think that the winner's name will start with a Q.

Anyways, soo today, I decided to focus my powers of deduction on tomorrow's patch.

The fabled should be over by now, so there is no real need for a patch to fix that.

The new Vetern Reward should be added.

Basically it's a mutli-layered mitigation rune. It starts off at 100% mitigation until X damage, then 75% till X, then 50%, and finally 25%. The dev's design this rune to scale with level... it will be usuable once every 4 hours.

If you ask me, 7th vet is still the shit.

"TSS Raid Class Items" will be improved tomorrow... how will that turn out? *looks at Solteris item pool*

and in a startling turn of events....

Samuel L. Jackson called, he said "Druids be cool!" ....

Mr. Jackson never lies... Mr. Thompson always lies!

Ok have a fun patch day, and gratz druids!

-da funk

Whoring yourself for gold?

http://forums.clubsi.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/1245680/page/1/fpart/1

This is worth a read.... or maybe it's not... either way I can't stop laughing right now.

I guess it is work safe...

but it is sooo funny...

A Sneak Peek to my Fabled Video

Ok guys, I'm not going to win this time... but, this is my first attempt at video editing. I figured I'd give it my best shot and see if I could make something worthy of calling fabled. It's goofy, but, can't say I didn't warn you!

If anyone wants to see my lame attempt...

>> Swampfunk's Fabled Adventure << (right click, save as)

And please post a reply!

Thanks,

-s.funk

So I have your interest now?

What the heck was that last post about? Seems to be the overwhelming message I got in feedback.

Well, I really can't go into detail. But I heard from a good source that the dev team is do some research to figure out how dps class balance stacks up in EQ. Or so, the "rumor" goes.

:) I love the word rumor it allows you to discredit your own information.

In other news. No guilds beat anything new. Triality is still all alone working on event 6 (which I hear is being altered daily or something)...

There were some leeks of the new class items that Merloc is apparently doing (who knew!):

Brightflame, Pride of the Lifebringer

MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO TRADE

Slot: PRIMARY Skill: 1H Blunt

Atk Delay: 23 DMG: 42 Dmg Bonus: 16 AC: 30

Skill Mod: Specialize Alteration +12%

DEX: +28 STA: +30 CHA: +27 WIS: +30 AGI: +35 HP: +455 MANA: +465

SV FIRE: +40 SV DISEASE: +25 SV MAGIC: +35 SV POISON: +45

Regeneration: +3 Mana Regeneration: +3 Stun Resist: +4% Shielding: +2% Strikethrough: +5

Required level of 75.

Effect: Hand of Holy Vengeance III (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 75

Focus: Mysaphar's Boundless Preservation

WT: 1.2 Size: MEDIUM

Class: CLR

Race: ALL

Slot 1, Type 8

and

Frosted Wrap of the Calm Spirit

MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO TRADE

Slot: SHOULDERS

AC: 53

Skill Mod: Block +8%

Skill Add DMG: Flying Kick +30

STR: +27 DEX: +33 STA: +30 CHA: +25 AGI: +35 HP: +465 ENDUR: +455

SV FIRE: +40 SV DISEASE: +25 SV MAGIC: +35 SV POISON: +45

Accuracy: +15 Strikethrough: +5% Attack: +30 Regeneration: +3

Required level of 75.

Effect: Improved Block V (Worn)

WT: 1.2

Size: SMALL

Class: MNK

Race: ALL

Slot 1, Type 8

These could be entirely made up... or they could be what you will expect to see with the next major item patch.

I want to believe that Merloc is finally devoting the time and effort to correct the crap that we call TSS and TBS itemization...

What has the Swamp been up to?

Well, I guess I been collecting video to make my awesome fabled video... sad part is I really don't think I got the right stuff. Oh well, I guess we will have to see what I do!

Beside that, Momentum has had a horde of applicants... and being the nice troll that I am, I've been running apps through the flagging for TSS and TBS over and over..... soo many times it makes me sick!

And then there is my Qvic guide in the corner of the room. I look at it, it looks at me... we are kind of in a stand-off till someone breaks... either it or me...

I made some new banners for the site... or atleast I'm experimenting with them now...

and

Just tossing some idea's around... does anyone like either?

Druids!

Swampfunk uses his magic ball to predict the future... the magic ball says druids will be getting their dps improved... this is all it says...

But if I were a knight, I might be feeling lucky....

What does this mean? I don't know... but in other news....

Class Items fixes are coming... believe in the funk!

p.s

Necro's are uber!

Questions for the Swamp

Greetings...

Today I want to try this a bit differently today. I don't plan on always having feeding the troll on a blog... infact I'll be converting to a different site rather soon. I want to create an enviroment where the players can same something too. I guess I don't expect this show to work solo... I have a few guest articles lined up, so keep an eye out for that.

Anyways... today I really want to gather some feedback... I'd like to aim this at the raiding crowd out there. What gear sucks? Since TSS and TBS were released, I'd have to say the over all quality of item creation has been off. I'm not going to point any fingers, but instead I want to start pushing forwards with some changes to current items.

For instance, the TSS Berserker Raid Item

From Harfang....

Ok... this neck... might look really good to some people... but in truth, it's lacking a major component... the focus...

When you create an item that is class based, you are basically saying, "hey, this is an item YOU WANT TO HAVE as !!!". But instead it's just a "ehh" item.

What is an "ehh" item? An ehh is the item that would be ok if you had all your focus accounted for, you didn't need a clicky, and you were basically just upgrading a slot to have better ac/hp... which is really the most boring of all upgades.... when the focus/mod2's down grade, but you gain hp/ac/mana/... everyone has to do it sometimes... hence the the name "ehh"...

You can always spot an "ehh" whenever someone win a drop, but no one says gratz.

Anyways...

If wanted to fix this BERSERKER item.. I'd first add like 40 frenzy. Then I'd toss 20 avoidance or 20 combat effects on that... really beefing the mod2... then, I'd add Jarring Strike as a clicky... why? because berserkers need more deaggro and it's easy to code. Finally I'd try to score a -aggro focus similar to the tank hate focus's found in game... it would just be coded in reverse... -10% de-aggro focus would make me explode in the head I think.

Anyways, that's what I'd do!

What items suck and what would you do! LEAVE COMMENTS!

DoT Shielding is Brokezorz

Just a heads up, thanks to Bloodfrenzied for the reminder!

The Mod2 stat "Dot Shielding" is not functioning correctly... with the addition of the DoT damage taken filter to EQ with the last patch, parses were able to determine that DoT shielding wasn't working... also, they determined that the DoT damage taken filter shows the full damage for dot damage, and not the actual amount of dot damage done to the player.

There were a few posts surfacing on EQLive already ranting on this topic... just another coding error that's been around forever it seems. Good Luck Devs!! Fix this shizz!

-s.funk

Where is EQ going?

Hello Readers!

Today I wanted to talk about where I think EQ is going. The last 2 expansion have been met with some pretty harsh criticism. Loral over at Mobhunter was giving a thumbs down to the latest release The Buried Sea. Of course, there are many folks out there that don't listen to a word Loral says since he is not an "elite".

Personally, I agree with some of what Loral said. Most of the new missions are LAME LAME LAME. Boring you could say. Or just too hard to beat. SoE in their infinite wisdom decided to cut the expansion in 3 parts. Easy single group, hard single group, and bend you over and smack you around in the face, raiding.

Easy Single Group-YARRR!!
We be the Pirate's with the silly names that make laugh and joke and drink rum! YARRR! I actually really enjoyed the pirates part of TBS, too bad I never find any groups working on the Jonas Skeletal Hand Aug!! All I ever find are other ubers like me farming the bits for their quests... as soon as those people finish, the buried sea will be an unpopulated zone. But I blame this on lack of item rewards... thing is... to attract people to zones, you gotta lure them in.... Personally I would add a Sea Monsters to the buried sea... Something that is utterly destructive... I'd have it patrol the outer rim of the zone and once an hour have it path through the more traveled areas.... I'd also make sure that it makes a bunch of warning before you get surprised by the pwnator!!!

Pirate missions are easy, anyone that thinks katta is too hard but they still want to progress... I suggest doing pirates missions from 65-75... anyone that can get a group quazi group together should cut it... remember pirates are stunnable, mezzable, and humanoid!


Hard Single Group - Katta
Katta.... Katta.... Kattaaaaaaa!!!

This is the opposite of Pirate missions. These missions are long, hard, and difficult. Should be a decent challenge for even the best geared groups. Sadly if you want your TBS rk.2 spells YOU MUST DO KATTA. I've been working on my faction the 'honest' way lately... but unless I bring a pimp group, or really just pray on the weakest katta mission I get OWN'd! I've tried umm a half dozen times now to form up a tank/healer/slower/dps/offtank/ type of pick up group... I can beat "The Great Invasion" or "The Knowledge of Power" quests pretty easy... but sadly so can everyone else and I get the min reward! If I try a mission without my guildies, I'll probably lose... and I assure you it isn't because I suck!

Katta has good rewards though, so I guess the difficulty justifies the rewards... I feel it is still too punishing... and that single group missions so be aim'd at 1 hour to complete... and we need a driving force to push more lvl 75 people into Katta so that grouping is made easier.

Raids- Bend over now please
Only a handful of guilds are making any sort of progress in Solteris... Triality, Township Rebellion, Cestus Dei, Triton, and Momentum have all atleast attempted Sol Raids.... Triality has beat 1-5, TR beat 1-2, and NO ONE ELSE BEAT JACK SHIT* (subject to change if someone else did manage to beat event 1! [t maelin.swampfunk if your guild beat Mayong's Sluts)...

But why would anyone want to do Solteris now? It's full of bugs, crazy hard, and rewards you with focus'less, crappy... 500 hp/mana/endurance generic items. Merloc hasn't even really taken the time to balance the loot from this zone... so why farm it?

If I were the dev team... I'd make all the TBS group zones have a exp modifier... just to attract new players to explore the area... I would add a few scary mobs in each zone... make sure they drop some fat loot... but make the mobs as hard as Solteris crap just to scare the crap out of Joe Casual.... *remember the griffons of EC, or the Hill Giants of WC* Running in fear from scary mobs is fun!

Ok.... so ... now what?

First of all item's need to be fixed: All of the single and raid level "class only" type of items from TSS need a focus and clicky/mod2 added to them.... and this needs to be done within a week...

Second... go through the Solteris raid loot... add about 30 focus effects... improve the weapons by 20% and improve the 2handers another 10% (trust me it needs to be done)....

Once the items in Solteris start looking crazy better and solid... the raiding guilds will start pursuing them. No one wants to work their ass off unless they are going to get a big reward for it.

Third- LFG tool... needs to be reworked... or we need to find a incentive to get pick up groups happening again... right now on all servers the pick up group is a dieing trend. Perhaps it's because the content is too punishing to those on the weak side of the EQ power curve... or perhaps it's because there is only 1 real healing class that can heal TBS stuff.... whatever the reason is... we need to find a way to get more pick up groups going!!!! Randomly meeting new people really makes EQ fun.. soo, without that aspect, I'm not surprised people get burned out and bored!

Next Expansion? coming? YES!

When? who the heck knows... I'd be willing to guess December.... the new bundle pack is great, but I have a feeling we are going to be seeing a later release... all depends on how many new players we pick up with the release of the latest bundle. If we get a big surge of converts to EQ... well, I'd expect a earlier release to milk those saps! (and everyone else!)

Money is the devil of EQ... if the world were perfect... EQ would be free and we'd all be buying expansions to support the game... not the monthly...

Well, that's all for today... I need to spell check and grammar check this crap.... I feel like I rushed!

Veteran MMORPG celebrates 8th anniversary with $20 EQ: Anniversary Edition

Don't let Everquest's age fool you, this game is very much still alive and kicking. With an amazing amount of zone content, 17 classes, and 16 races EQ is easily competitive with anything else on the market. Right now is a great opportunity for old veterans to return or new players to come explore the eight years worth of content EQ has to offer.



read more | digg story

TSS Powersource Farming and Quest Armor

Powersources! or THE BANE OF TSS ARMOR MOLDS!!

When The Serpent's Spine (TSS) was released there was a cheer followed by a large boo. The cheer was tons of players saying, Hurrah! New expansion raid armor! and the boo was from players realizing that they needed to find many more drops for the armor.

TSS had 2 tiers of equipment (each tier split up to lesser and greater rewards). One aimed at the 73-75 crowd of casuals and the other was aimed at the TSS raiders.

TSS raids were not all that difficult. They required a large amount of time spent in the two high end dungeons: Ashengate and Frostcrypt. Now my guild was one of the earlier raiding guilds to finish their AG raiding farming... we organized the guild into doing many quest related camp spots at once, and then used mages to coh between the camps. Sadly, we didn't know that Large Powersources were important, or class related... so for the most part we rotted them all... cheer.

Flash forwards a few months and those same guild members were now farming for the powersources that they had wasted during their flagging. Was a major bummer really, and most people were already burnt out from the elongated flagging process.... I think my guild lost at least 5 people just from PS farming burnout.

Now me, I'm different, I appreciate a challenge.... especially ones that force the raiding ubers to group with whoever else is working in AG or FC. It's rare that uber raiders group with casuals... the process always leads to some sort of frustration. Usually the uber is use to slopping his way through the easy (because of gear) content. And the casual is use to the perfect group make up and is bewildered when a Berserker joins the group and says he has more hitpoints (hp) than your tank.

Well, after the ubers and casuals adjust to each other, usually you will have a pretty productive relationship. ( no not babies ) The uber should know the dungeon layout, tricks and corners pretty well... he was forced to learn them while doing all his flagging for raids. And the Casuals will usually be really good at least one camp... I mean they gotta put their time into something right?

But what happens when you just got your 4th armor mold and are still short powersources? Well!!!! BUCKLE DOWN!!

The key to fast PS farming is finding a busy day where there are multiple groups doing camps in AG. I say AG because it's easier and you are probably much more likely to find groups camping there. First priority is to figure out who is at what camp. Once you know that, try to determine who the leader of each group is... there are two really good PS camps in AG...

1. The base of west tower 1... You can pull Agril Oppressor or Brimstone Juggernaut to your camp... fast re spawn, probably gonna get 2 named an hour.

2. Safe Spot after crossing west bridge.... also know as Crying Dragon Bridge... this camp has 4 possible named that a good puller can bring the placeholders (PH) of... Galvanized Guardian, Core Flame, The Unspeakable, and Arbiter of Ash.

Now you want to make sure you know the difference between the normal versions of monsters here and the named versions. The normal version have no capitol letters in their name, and they have "a" or "an" in their names (e.g. an agril oppressor vs Agril Oppressor, see the difference?)

The second thing is you are going to need a tank that can handle these named... they are what I call difficult for most. Of course there are many ubers out there that are thinking, " pfft these named are cake"... drr... Yer an uber....

If you choose either of the camps I suggest, gg... if those camps are full... I suggest a backup tactic to forming a group... Leaching...

Find a group that does not possess any members that conflict with your armor type.. or a group that has members who do not raid TSS (and they might not be seeking powersources)... ask the group if they mind you helping them from outside the group (they should say no problem, cause free help = more exp). If you see the group clearing the named PH, then you know it's only a matter of time before a powersource drops.... if you picked the right group... no one will want the powersource and you can score it for yourself!

Things to know about ps:

Everynamed in AG of FC will drop 1 powersource... the type of drop is random... can get all 4 types from any named.

4 types

Translucent = Cloth
Flickering = Leather
Faintly = Chain
Lightly = Plate

Large PS are for TSS raid armor, the normal ones are for casual group armor.

The quest to create the armor comes from Crescent Reach...

Each armor type has a quest bit/scrap associated with it

Swatch = Cloth
Hide = Leather
Links = Chain
Metal = Plate

You need this many bits per quest armor you wish to make:

bracer = 1
gloves = 3
arms = 3
head = 3
boots = 3
legs = 4
chest = 4

Farm your powersources, it really improves the quality of your armor!

Hide Guild Banner!

So here I am raiding... when a simple suggestion comes up in guild... and I think to myself... geez, why do I just start putting these things up here.

I agree! There needs to be an option to hide guild banner and campfires from view... the guild banner is causing issues in some video cards and so are the campfires.

So, I /salute Medeous for being the first player suggestion quote on the site.

Fabled Video Adventurer

If you haven't seen it

http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/news_article.vm?id=50371

Check it, seems the folks over at SOE have decided that game video's is the shizzzzzzit... welcome to the wagon! Only took them 4 years to catch up.

So, I figured, I should attempt this video contest. Even though I'm really not a video editing pro. Infact, it is due in a very short amount of time and I'm no where near finished. Been trying to find some good cheap/free video editing software....

But what really bonkers me is you can only use EQ related video and music files! How am I supposed to create greatness without a huge selection of awesome music to mix into my video!

/sigh

Oh well, I have an idea, maybe it will work! If I do make a video, I'll definately be posting it here.


p.s. if anyone is a video pro, send me an email at swampfunk@gmail.com and feel free to load me up on tips!

-funk

Did you know?

Did you know that faction rewards from Katta Missions scale with the dynamic rewards system of TSS.

A good way to gage how much faction you will get is to compare the Orux value from your missions... the bigger orux vales gives bigger faction values that scale the same way!

I'm not sure how much the mission faction values scale, but I assume you could get much bigger faction rewards for the harder missions... which is cool!

Beastlord Ferocity and what I'd do.

Beastlords this one is for you!

It's been a long time coming now. Beastlords have a buff line called Ferocity. There are 3 versions of this buff... originally it was meant to be an alternative buff line to the Shaman Avatar line of buffs.

Long ago, back when attack mattered. But things have changed greatly... the average high end raider has way way more attack than EQ's engine was designed to handle. And of course, the Dev team at SOE kinda messed up the last 6 expansions worth of AC values for mobs. Don't ask me how this was never noticed until now, but it's a true story.

So, back to Shaman's Avatar line... Avatar begat Ferine Avatar begat Champion (or I think that's how it went) ... There was a major shift in power with champion buff. It's really an excellent dps oriented group buff. It is esential to most dps raid builds. Beastlord's unfortunately were left in the dust when Shamans gained champion.

If you remove the benefit of attack from the ferocity line of buffs, then you are left with a resist buff and a stamina (not cap breaking) buff. Originally the stamina buff was important because it gave a large chunk of hp.... now it's worthless. The resist part of the buff is actually a tad useful, but it's also usually wasted because of one reason. The best dps always gets top priority for the mega buffs. And the best dps usually have the best gear, and the best resists because of this.

So what are you left with? A buff that is very expensive, has a large recast, a short duration, and very limited benefit to anyone of the high end raiding nature? If the buff is properly used, it's mostly wasted. If you ask me that means this buff is bogus and needs to be repaired.

I have a plan!

Let's go back to where ferocity was left in the dust comparatively: Champion. What made champion better? Group Spell and Damage mod...

Ok, since beastlords are hybrids of shaman, we can throw the idea of any sort of powerful group buff out the window. So instead, let's keep Fero single target... and instead up the duration of the spell.

Currently at max focus the buff last for 10:30 .... and let me tell you, that's short! Instead lets double the duration so that we have a 21 minute buff at max focus... 21 minutes... heck how about 30 minutes?? Would it really hurt to allow this buff to last for a while? It's horrible to force a melee oriented hybrid class into lots of short buffs! They are busy hitting and nuking!!

OR!....!!

Let's take an aspect of Champion and give it to Ruthless Ferocity, cause by now the beastlord's would learn a buffable damage mod from parent shaman class, or so the logic goes right? ... (I'm only suggesting this be added to the Ruthless Ferocity Rk.1-3 spells)...

Add: 10%,11%,12% damage mod to the Rk. 1-3 spells... Why? because a single target spell should have a great value over a group spell. Also, this isn't a nerf to shaman, it's really more of an alternative to champion. Giving Ruthless Fero a slight edge over champion also gives a really good reason to cast the buff... a real 2% dps gain to anyone running fero...

2% is big enough to make the spell worthy of casting...

I will be suggesting this change to the dev team, hopefully I can convince them of my logic....

Hopefully enough of the beastlord community will understand why this is one of the best ways to give ferocity value again... it's not a giant change, but it's enough to give the spell buff value.

April Fools and what not!

Ok.... the april fools joke for EQ is corny.

CORNY!

But, being the funk, I can appreciate the effort in a bad joke! And furthermore, how can you not be pleased with all the stick figure jokes you have heard today. The only thing it's missing is a Bristlebane running around telling really bad fart jokes.

Come to think of it... I think I'm gonna release my Jester tonight during raids...

Ok... so on to the news.

Why has Swampfunk not been posting?

answer) School is kicking my ass and I really haven't had much to say

Now that I said that, the next question should be? When do we expect to start seeing some real shit man?

answer) soon. but give me sometime to work on the good stuff!

One minute of high end news!
Township Rebelion beat event 2 in Solteris, expect some c-waving

Triality is whamping the crap out of event 6 in Solteris... expect more c-waving and probably a badass Quarken video...

and momentum is gearing the shit out of all the apps they have...no c-waving for us....imagine what happens with you give farmboys crack! (p.s. CLERICS COME TO MOMENTUM WE LOVE YOU XOXOXOX)

gg, I wish someone at Cestus D would let me know how they are doing, no one ever says hello!

this concludes your high end news

Oh, in sad Swampfunk news... the greatest pet fish ever died... so I gave him a proper pyre funeral...

Dev News

So, word on the street says that Rogues are going to see a major change to how their backstab works. Basically the idea is that backstab damage will be a new seperate field on piercing weapons. This means the normal damage of piercers can be improved to match similar 1hb and 1hs weapons. Bards, Beastlords, Rangers can rejoice on a new field of weaponry for them! And rogues can be mad that they have to compete for weapons again!

But atleast rogue dps will improve!

Merloc has started working on TSS class items. I'm hoping to see a focus and clicky effect on all the various one class only items that dropped through-out TSS expansion. Rejoice for item fixes are coming!

I know I'm personally really enjoying the +2 damage improvement to my Beltron Hammer... (Fjordianzsdifd or whatever, not like the name was supposed to be read)...

Also, I hear that the fix for overhaste rounding is top priority over at SOE, take it for what that's worth! But, usually they tell a quazi realistic version of the truth to use board trolls.

And of course, expansion rumors are already flying around, could it be true? of course it is, drrr...the real question is how long?

Ok... sorry for the rushed update, but I had to post something... I'm still working on my QVIC guide... it's a pain in the ass to MSPaint all this shit down... seriously... even worse the dev's keep removing my tricks from the game! I'll get you prathun!

Have fun and keep checking back, the postings will increase!

-funk

Will work for Peanuts!!

Well, I've been gone the last 5 days... in the Windy City... or I should say.. in the "OMG WE LOVE ST. PATRICK'S DAY" City... Chicago, where they drink and drink and drink and then drink some more!! Running around in freezing temperature's dye'd in green .

Well, I when I got back to home, I hopped into EQ to see what I had missed in the last week. I thought, well, I'd try to find a LFG group and see what was up. I spent a few hours with my LFG flag on before I decides to actively pursue a group.

I was amazed at how hard it can be to find a pick up group. Even on Maelin Starpyre, which is what I call a healthy server! Eventually, I thought to myself, well if I can't find a normal group at my level, maybe I can whore myself out a bit....

So what I did, was go to PoK and advertise, 75 Berserker will kill anything you want, charging 10k a kill.... and BAM! I get about 10 requests for various mobs around the world. TONS of people are needing to get stuff done... but they did once ask me to come help before I started advertising... Why?

I thought to myself, why wouldn't people ask for help on stuff without a charge, but when I started asking for a charge, I suddenly was able to find a group looking for help... I was baffled...

To me, this says the LFG system and the Party reward system has gotten out of whack. People are no long inclined to explore for new friend and LFG people... the vast difference in power at lvl 75 has caused the LFG system to fail. Why join a group without knowing if the people in your group are anywhere near you in terms of power? But, when a big beefy berserker says, "hey, I'll kill stuff for you, for cheap..." players start to think, hey I can get something I want done without the worry of a real group!

I think another issue in the Social aspect of EQ is the fact that everything is treated like a favor... rarely do you find a group that is all working towards the same goal. Why? Because there are 4 billion different goals in EQ... What happens in reality is player A asks player B to do event X... player B says, sure, but can you help me with event Y afterwards? Player A does not want to do event Y for player B... and so player A thinks "fuck it, I hate event Y"... and logs off to player some WoW....

And here is a reason why we see EQ in decline... players have no incentive to group and help each other... beside the vague fantasy hope that good deeds will be returned!

It is a vicious cycle, but since it has been working like this for so long, it's almost accepted as a law.

"If you want help, you must give help!"

Now, when I advertsized "Will work for peanuts" then the player A realizes I don't have an event Y... instead I just want plat up front... and that is why players were eager to ask me to help them... I made the deal simple... give me plat, you get your goal.... half the time required (without considering where that plat came from).

So, I plan on taking this theory further... since no one will use the LFG tool, I'll just offer my services to people on Maeling... if I'm not raiding, just ask me for help! I'm cheap... peanuts will do!

In other news... seems that no one has beaten any new Solteris event...

I'm gonna post about why the 7th vetern's nerf was a good thing too...

I'm also going to post some coverage on the Anniversary and Fabled mob stuff!!

Ok. Sorry for that big gap in news! More posts this week! BACK TO THE GRIND

-Swampfunk

Slow Week and Spring Break!

Well, it's been a week, the time changed here in Indiana, it always disorients me. To prepare I spent the week with a tinfoil hat and avoided looking at the sun. Oddly, the tinfoil hat tends to prevent me from posting about EverQuest... who knew?

Not much has happened in EQ this last week. In highend guild news, Triality whipped their way all the way to Solteris Event 4... TR still on Event 2 ... and I think I heard Cestus Dei made a kill on event 1! Who keeps track anyways anymore?? Not like it's gonna matter soon...Momentum will be back! (<-- thats my weekly high end guild joke! get it?)

There were some picture leaks of the end fight of Solteris earlier this week. I'm not gonna post them but I am going to say, "shame on you for spoiling it!"... I know you aren't there yet, so using beta shots is bad!

But besides that, really not much else for me to mention. I've been working on my walk-through's for Qvic and Anguish. It's taking way longer than expected... mainly due to having to do them all again to remember! Qvic is way easier than I remembered too.

Oh... and my tip of the day: Get Corruption Resists...

ok... I got a tinfoil hat and some nice weather to go through...

Typical Mob Pins

Greetings to the over 3000 viewers I have had in the last 3 days!!

I'd like to start of and say thank you for checking out my stuff, I'm getting lots of good feedback and will be making some changes due to that feedback. Hopefully I'll be able to find a new domain, and design a fantastic new site for you guys.

I haven't received any email yet, and this makes me sad! How am I supposed to do a "Letters to Swampfunk" page, if I don't get any letters?! Oh well, hopefully some of the less "EQ experienced" players will ask some questions. Don't be shy, I promise to hide identity and to be kind!

I also think there will be a screen shot contest coming up soon, so start collecting awesome screenshots!

Ok, today I want to talk through basic steps on how to pin a monster (mobile or mob for short). I'm sure there will be readers out there that think this is silly, mainly because they have been using these pins for years now. But I feel there are enough users out there who have no idea what pins are and when to use them that I'm going to post this anyways.

In EverQuest its pretty easy to tell that mobs die faster when they aren't being pushed around everywhere. It's much easier to focus your DPS's attention on a stationary target. I've calculate that a raid will lose 25-40% of it's melee DPS from a moving mob (also know as the moving pin!) Most of the time when a guild attacks a mob, they have an idea of how to pin the mob (or atleast they should!). But more times than not, they all act like noobies and push the mob in a weird unnatural way. This can be very frustrating to all the melee members as they keep getting "your target is too far away" messages meaning they lost valuable DPS (Damage Per Second)!!

Today, I will cover the basic pins.... keep an eye out for my advanced pin article in the future.

The "corner pin" is every one's favorite pin. If done properly, it gives everyone the rear arc of a mob for their DPS. The rear arc is important because mobs will not get a defensive skill (parry, riposte, block, dodge) check on the melee attacking it. It is also important that the majority of the DPS be aimed at directly pushing the mob into the corner evenly. If the push becomes unbalanced the mob will often be pushed through the wall or objects and then warp out to somewhere inconvenient... warping is always bad. I also suggest have 2 or so people designated to adjust to the majority push (designated as Escape Control here).

It's pretty hard to mess up the corner pin, but the lovely dev's at SOE have decided to design all their zones without corners lately or with object that interfer with corner pins. This is especially true in their raid zones. Apparently, being able to corner pin a mob is too powerful! Typical nerfage.

Since the dev team decided that corners were evil, the next best pin is called the "shoulder pin", or "side pin". The idea is to find a flat wall, place the mob and tank with their shoulders against the wall and then have the DPS push towards the wall. The DPS should do their best to align their push to be perpendicular (make a T) to the wall. But, even with the best push, the mob will still try to slide up and down the wall. To correct this I always suggest placing a few rogues in the positions marked 1. and 2. and then place a few monks, or tanks with good push, at positions 3. and 4. I always try to give the rogues rear arc in any pin.

Being able to react to the mobs position in this pin is very important. But once you have practised and get a good feel on how to balance the push, you will see a solid stationary mob. Also, the rear arc of a mob starts at the side position where I have the majority of the DPS here and thats important.

A good example of how the DPS should look at the various mob defense arcs.

As you can see, the front arc is very big, and the side arc eats up half of the rear arc. When you attack from the side arc you will still get the mob's defensive skill checks, but you will not suffer damage from any sort of Riposte damage. The priority should be pretty clear for where the melee want to attack from. Sadly, there are many situations that force the melee to attack from the less favorable positions.

For example, the dreaded circle pin:

The "circle pin" is the most painful of the basic pins. It's hard to balance and generally pushes the mob all over the place and wastes a lot of DPS. This is a situation where the melee must give up there rear arc preference and spread themselves around the mob evenly. It takes a while to get a good feeling for this pin. Furthermore, it's very difficult to assign the various melee to the various positions on the 360 degree attack arc. I always suggest placing rogues at position 1. and I always suggest placing monks and tanks at position 2. Berserkers, rangers, bards, and beastlords ( NO PETS) then need to fill in the side arcs.

It is important to note that pets are NOT allowed on a circle pin or the side pin. It is impossible to position and reposition the pets so that they don't ruin the pin's balance. Pets have a crazy amount of push, they also will ignore the pin's balance and push to whatever direction the mob begins to be pushed. (if the mob starts going left, the pets will all end up pushing the mob harder to the left, due to the way pets stick to a mob). Sorry pet users, but don't use your pets when the pin is important.

OK, well, that's my basic introduction to mob position and pins. I'll be writing more about pins soon, I still have many moving pins to cover. If your guild is having trouble with position, ask yourself, is there a place that I can pin this sucker? If not, start practising the circle pin. The guild who can master the circle pin, can defeat any mob in EverQuest.

Alrighty, enjoy your pins today!

Keep reading, and send me some email questions @ swampfunk@gmail.com

What is Class Desirability?

It seems to me that the term Desirability is often misunderstood to the majority of the EverQuest community. As you can easily deduce, the word describes the amount of desire, or demand, for a class.

But why do we desire/demand certain classes over other classes? The question comes down to the effect of the class on the group's ability to win. Everything in EverQuest can be boiled down to one predominate factor, the desire to improve your character. How do you improve your character? You improve by winning.

The win, its what drives most players. Of course there are always those who think outside of the box, and focus their attention elsewhere, but the majority of the players want to win. Winning can be accomplished in all area's of EQ. From your first fights and quests, to the leveling process, to the high end raids. You want to win in everything that you do in EQ.

But you don't always win in EQ. Sometimes you lose, and it stings! How do you translate a lose in EQ? Usually translate to when you fail a mission, or die in game. Another way of losing is when someone else gets a win before you do. It's a common practise for the high end guilds to race to be the first winners of new events. And while everyone gets the same exact reward for a win on the same event, the first win is always worth bragging rights.... even if you are Triality (just joking!). I find many top end guilds worry more about being the first winners, than they worry about just winning a fight. And of course, there is always the petty bickering that you'll see as one guild claims another guild exploited an event, or they use haxxx, or they had help from a dev... but that's really all about ego and face, and is mostly for show.

Now, back to class desire. Why do we desire some classes and not desire others? Well, since EverQuest is a group/raid based game, players will naturally start to consider how to maximize their wins. Think of it a Wins vs Loses, and naturally, players will seek the classes that they believe, from experience, will lead them to a better win:lose ratio. This all started a very long time ago, and the argument, "Your class is better than mine" became very popular. Why? Because the dev team pretends that they want the classes to all have about the same level of desire. Of course it is impossible to ever really balance the classes. Instead, what started was a 8 year long battle over who is the best and who is the worst. It's a constantly shifting process.

Take the berserker class. This class was a rushed experiment of advertising and stolen warrior class ideas. The dev team took a template from the warrior class, changed kick to frenzy, and then removed all the defensive ability of warrior, and added a few odd throwing skills. Nothing worked at first, so you basically had a crappy warrior who was stuck in chain armor and forced to use 2handed weapons. Berserker desirability sucked, no one wanted them in groups, no one wanted them in raids, no one wanted the class period (most rangers still are under this sentiment). So for the first 6 months of their existence berserkers were screwed... very few actually made it to the end game raiding, and the ones that did make it were mocked to the point of quitting. Thankfully, due to some strong community movement, the dev team was forced to take action on the class. With the release of the next expansion, Rashere was able to improve the berserker class to the point of where they had some demand. A few more expansion later and a few more key upgrades, all the sudden we start to hear the Cinderella story that is the berserker class. But this also shows how important the community was in the development/balance/tuning of a class.

So, now that we see how a class can go from low demand to high demand, you should start to understand why it is soo important to watch out for the classes with low demand. Druids and Beastlords are the two classes that I believe are in the lowest demand right now.

Druids are stuck in between healers and nukers... or at least that what it seems to me. Of course, if druids improve in healing, then the clerics throw a fit and say that druids have all this "utility" and "dps" that clerics don't have (which is total BS). Or if you go the other way and give druids better DPS ability, then you have classes like mages and wizards complaining that druids get nukes AND heals AND cures... its a really tricky path. If it were up to me, I'd give druids a form of Div. Arb and a group RGC type of ability and call it settled... but, alas, SOE doesn't see fit in hiring a troll.

Beastlords suffer from a similar problem. It's a hybrid class that is 1 part mage, 1 part shaman, and 1 part monk. Sadly, the beastlords get nothing special out of any of it's parent classes. You are left with the weakest melee, weakest slower, and weakest pet. And of course, in the raiding world there is a huge problem with Pet classes, due to the way raid npc's tend to have AE rampage abilities that WTFPWN the pets. Some would say the beastlord's paragon of spirit line of AA are what makes the class... but I truthfully don't believe that argument.

What it all boils down to, why would you want a beastlord when you could just as easily have a shaman (better buffs/healing/curing/dps) or a real dps (mnk or ranger)? Why would you want a druid when you could bring a cleric, shaman, or wizard instead? Does the overlap in ability justify the lack of power in the classes? Do the very few useful abilities of these classes make them worthy? I say NO!

There is a really long post on EQLive about this very same topic: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=106581
Its about 15 pages long, and is mostly full of wasted space. There are a few good posts in there that can really help the average EQ'r understand desirability/demand. I suggest taking a look at the post... but only if you can filter out the crap posts from the real board trolls.

I'll be discussing Class Balance a lot here on Feeding the Troll. I feel it is really something that the community needs to hear about, and also, I'd like to be able to post opinions here without worrying that the Halflings will edit what I say. Hopefully we will see some resolution show up for these 2 leather based hybrid classes, and hopefully it won't take two years. Heck, I hope EQ lasts long enough to really take a good look at class balance!

Anyways, check back later, I should post one more article today!