AAs, Mob Difficulty, and Progressing Through Expansions

[jshows1]

Hey guys. I just got my personal server up and running and am really enjoying messing around with a bot group and such.

Just looking at the different aspects of EQEmu atm, I have a couple of questions:

1) With the lack of AAs available to us in the higher levels, what do you guys do in the later expansions? I know the first several expansions don't really require a lot of AAs to be effective. But as you get into Omens of War, etc, what do you guys do to make up for the lack of CA/CS as well as aggro AAs for Tanks and Healing AAs for casters?

2) Secondly, and I guess this ties into the first question, how do the mobs compare in the default database (I'm using rev2133) to mobs on the live servers as you get into higher levels in terms of difficulty? For example, damage output, hit point total, etc.

3) Another mob related question: What are the mob layouts like in most of the zones compared to live servers? Are the zones comparable in mob density? How about named spawns and their frequency?

4) and finally, what's the highest expansion that is populated with mobs and npcs in the database? Can you get all the way into SoF and beyond if you have the appropriate client files?

I realize that a lot of these questions will be answered as I play over time, I'm just curious before I get into it if there are things that I'll have to change to make it comparable to live. I am not expecting it to be a live clone, but I would like the difficulty to be at least comparable.

Thanks in advance!

[501st]

The default PEQ database is not yet finished. And to be honest, since it chases Live and Live is ever growing, it most likely never truly will be. It only goes up to Gates of Discord at the moment and even that still has a couple zones unfinished. Beyond GoD (Omens of War through Veil of Alaris and anything released between that time frame) you cannot compare to Live as it is not even finished on PEQ. Hence the missing AAs, lack of loot tables etc etc.

As far as up to GoD goes though, EQEmu is not exactly like Live. Especially more-so due to the addition of out-of-era clients and client functionalities that did not exist during the GoD era, implemented for testing purposes for the utilization on custom servers. It is, however, very very close and while you will notice some differences it is generally nothing to worry about.

-Danyelle

[jshows1]

ahh! So it's basically up to most of GoD atm. That's good to know, thanks. I have one more question that's popped up since then (sorry! Still learning). I figured it would be better to add it to this post rather than start a new one.

I noticed there is a command for #bot pull or something along those lines. However, when I give the command to one of my bots to pull (a monk) I get the message that the mob is out of range, even though we are pretty close.

Is this a command that is a work in progress? Or is it not functional?

[jshows1]

Sorry for the double post. I wasn't able to edit my last post for some reason. I just noticed that it seems like nameds will spawn everytime around. Is this the case? Or have I just been extremely lucky.

if so, this is a little disconcerting to me. I was hoping to get that feel of accomplishment of being able to camp a rare named for a while and finally getting an item. If this is the case, is there a way to modify the spawn chance of a named mob to make it more like live?

[Cilraaz]

I assume by "everytime around", you mean when the zone shuts down and restarts. If not, you can still use the information below to check the exact percentage chance for the named to spawn on every respawn.

If you're not saving the zone's state when the zone dies (whether a dynamic being unloaded or the server being restarted), then when the zone restarts, it will fully repop based on the spawn tables. If we use Lord Nagafen as an example (assuming dynamic zones). If I don't save soldungb's state, I can go into the zone, kill Naggy, leave the zone, wait for the zone to shutdown, re-enter the zone, and kill him again. This is because his spawn chance is 100% and there's no saved zone state showing him as dead.

You can find spawn chances for specific mobs by running these SQL queries (and if there's an easier way or I'm wrong, please someone correct me):

SELECT * FROM npc_types WHERE name='Lord Nagafen'

which returns something like:

  id           name         lastname   level  <snip>
32040  Lord_Nagafen                     55    <snip>

Now, you can take the mob's id and find its spawn entry like this:

SELECT * FROM spawnentry where npcID=32040

which returns something like:

spawngroupID   npcID    chance
    6712       32040     100

As far as I'm aware, "chance" is the mob's spawn chance percentage within that spawn group. If you query the spawngroupID, you could have multiple mobs with a chance to spawn (for example, a named/PH shared spawn point). You can query the entire spawn group like this:

SELECT * FROM spawnentry WHERE spawngroupID=6712

That will show you every npcID in that spawn group, which can be cross-referenced back to the npc_types table.

TL;DR - You need to save your zone state upon shutdown, or the server won't remember what mobs were killed when the zone is restarted. This can be done by changing the entry 'PersistentZoneState' in the 'variables' table to "1".

[iluvseq]

Unless you need to be able to play while disconnected from the internet, it seems to me that maybe you'd be better served by simply playing on one of the already existing servers that allow bots and are setup to be solo friendly.

The Irreverent is designated as a solo server, maybe it would fit your needs?

[jshows1]

@Cilraaz. Very informative post! It really is helpful to learn new things about EQEmu like that. That's exactly what I needed to know. Setting my PersistentZoneState is just what I was looking for.

And oh, btw, Nothing that informative can be tl;dr worthy. I enjoy learning new things. And the only way to do that properly IMO is to be thorough. Thanks again!

@Iluvseq. Thanks for the suggestion! I'm sure there are some wonderful servers out there. And if all I was interested in was playing, then you are right on, that would be perfect.

However, I'm really enjoying learning about EQEmu and messing around with the customization of my own server as I play. But I do appreciate the suggestion. Thanks!

[bad_captain]

Originally Posted by jshows1

I noticed there is a command for #bot pull or something along those lines. However, when I give the command to one of my bots to pull (a monk) I get the message that the mob is out of range, even though we are pretty close.

Is this a command that is a work in progress? Or is it not functional?

Bot pull requires the bot to be an archer. Whether it is a tank with a bow, a ranger, or whatever. It doesn't tell them to run over and hit the mob. It may even work with thrown items, where as far as I can tell, it just checks the range item's range and goes by that.