Melee in the Velious Era

[provocating]

There has been a lot of discussion on how accurate the damage, avoidance and mitigation systems are in EqEmu. Torven has done a great job doing parsing and accumulating mass amounts of data, and then reporting that data back here in a way we can all digest it. I have also reached out to him on this subject but I think this is also best to be left to the masses, crowd sourced response if you will. On Legacy of FrostStone we have had many behind the scenes discussion on how melee should be in the game. I think it is not noticeable on most servers because they have elevated experience rates or openly give you a means to obtain max level quickly, like boxing, bots.

I have found a few things that definitely impacted the low level melee and have mitigated those issues but past level 15 melee gets hammered pretty bad. Luckily there are quite a few server rules that will let you tweak your server to your liking, I have also added a few to my own server so I can change mitigation on the fly.

So my scattered Everquest experience was just a few weeks of classic, then maybe 6 months of Kunark. I had a long break as my interest changed and did not get involved again until Planes of Power. I also only played a Magician for a main, I dabbled in Druid and Necromancer. So Melee is a foreign subject to me, but I am learning more as time passes. Since I have limited knowledge on melee I have no idea what their solo capability was during the era. My understanding on Melee back then was a Warrior was never a solo class, you just could not do consistent damage to be solo viable. So for the old salts out there that have good memories of Classic style play, what could a melee do? Back then you were probably wearing a set of Banded at level 30 carrying what ever weapon you could find. What could you take down at level 30 consistently? Was it a green, light blue or blue?

[provocating]

I want to add that my above post is just to get a general feel on how far the current system is off and where it is off. I am just trying to find which system is off the most, mitigation, damage, avoidance, etc.

[rhyotte]

Without a lot of potions of healing, and damage shield, warriors were extremely hard to even think about soloing past about level 10 or so. Twinks do not count of course, that is very different. In fact, you could almost say warriors invented and refined the concept of TWINK ;)

Honestly, *That* exact piece of nostalgia kinda sucked... On the other hand, there was a certain mystique attached to a player who went all the way to the top of the end game as a warrior because of the class difficulty.

[chrsschb]

Wars could do a single green and low blue (there were no light blues) with a lot of downtime. It was very inefficient without good gear, buffs, and preferably, a buff bot.

Rogues were similar but could exploit position timing to drop a backstab here and there.

Monks were a little better thanks to high h2h damage, mend, extra mitigation through block, and AC bonus for basically being broke as fuk and of course could FD if things went south (which of course has the bonus of being able to split multi-pulls for easier quality of life).

In my opinion the current state of the emulator (an out of the box EQemu install) puts content (all aspects considered) in the realm of 6-8x easier than it was in that time frame.

[demonstar55]

In my opinion the current state of the emulator (and out of the box EQemu install) puts content (all aspects considered) in the realm of 6-8x easier than it was in that time frame.

Almost all of that is due to attack speed being too slow.

[chrsschb]

Almost all of that is due to attack speed being too slow.

All classes are considerably more powerful as well, not just a fault of the NPC's speed.

[demonstar55]

All classes are considerably more powerful as well, not just a fault of the NPC's speed.

That's because PC damage calc is about 100% wrong. But even just making raid stuff attack faster (raid content should be between 10 and 20 attack delay usually) does greatly increase the difficulty of the content.

[Khokon]

There must be old log files that can be parsed. Even without knowing the class and gear of the chars in the file, it would still give an image.

Does anyone have any log files from 1999-2002 or knows where to get them?

BR,
Khokon

[provocating]

:D

https://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39789

http://www.graffe.com/forums/showthread.php?74221-Everquest-Log-Files

[Khokon]

Can you point me a bit more towards it? I see you receiving logfiles per PM and Akkadius providing an upload link. But how do I get them?
I'm not intested in the auctions from ragefire even though the numbers there are impressive :-)

BR,
Khokon

[provocating]

Sadly enough, I really did not get anything of value. Torven did have some logs from EqMac before they shut down.

[chrsschb]

That's because PC damage calc is about 100% wrong. But even just making raid stuff attack faster (raid content should be between 10 and 20 attack delay usually) does greatly increase the difficulty of the content.

Not arguing that. No matter how you choose to bring the difficulty back there's not a single change solution.

[Grumble]

Since I have limited knowledge on melee I have no idea what their solo capability was during the era. My understanding on Melee back then was a Warrior was never a solo class, you just could not do consistent damage to be solo viable. So for the old salts out there that have good memories of Classic style play, what could a melee do? Back then you were probably wearing a set of Banded at level 30 carrying what ever weapon you could find. What could you take down at level 30 consistently? Was it a green, light blue or blue?

Consistent damage wasn't the issue. HP recovery after combat was the issue. At L30, HP regen was only 30hp per minute while sitting and 10 while standing.

I played a monk (EZ mode of EQ melee). Monks could bind wound up to 50% hp then hit mend. Every 6 minutes, you could be back up to 80%+ and be ready to pull again.

One blue con mob every 6 minutes. Light blue's didn't exist. Green con mobs gave no experience (before grey cons were added).

This was using bare fists (10/34 at L30). Pre-Fungi or other regen items. Pre-weapon itemization for monks.

Warriors and rogues had a tougher time because they didn't have mend. A monk can start at 80% hp and end at 10% hp and be able to repeat this process every 6 minutes. A warrior/rogue going down to 10% hp will only go back up to ~55% hp in the same amount of time. Warrior/Rogues have to either wait longer to get up to 80% hp or fight lower/weaker mobs.

[provocating]

We have been working hard on Legacy of FrostStone to get melee better, more accurate to the era. So far it is looking way better.

[demonstar55]

Light blue's didn't exist.

Light blue existed, just they were still blue. Light blue was added because there were lesser blue cons :P

[chrsschb]

Light blue existed, just they were still blue. Light blue was added because there were lesser blue cons :P

So, what you're saying is that the mobs conned blue?

Got it.

[N0ctrnl]

The mob is blue, the mob is blue, the goddamn mob is blue!

[Shendare]

There! Are! Four! Lights!

[demonstar55]

Yes, but the concept of a blue con that wasn't as good as other blue cons existed. They just added light blue con and applied it to those level ranges so. So before it was normal blur cona nd shitty blue con, then it became blue con and light blue.

[chrsschb]

Yes, but the concept of a blue con that wasn't as good as other blue cons existed. They just added light blue con and applied it to those level ranges so. So before it was normal blur cona nd shitty blue con, then it became blue con and light blue.

I think you're missing the point of us saying light blues didn't exist. It was hard (nearly impossible) at the time to know whether or not that blue con mob was 5 levels below you or 1. And it made a huge difference.

[nilbog]

Light blue was the con of npcs which were 'high green', but still yielded exp.

We have changed the way the /consider command works and expanded the level range at which players are able to gain experience. We have added a 'light blue' area between green and blue. NPCs that used to /consider green but gave experience will now /consider light blue, as well as NPCs of slightly lower level than those greens. You will always get experience for something that is light blue. You will not receive experience for greens. At the same time, by including lower level NPCs in the light blue /consider, we have increased the range of lower level NPCs that will grant experience. This will be most noticeable for characters of higher level.
http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20011107.html

[demonstar55]

Close enough :P the level range existed, it just wasn't a different color :P

[MarcusD]

Consistent damage wasn't the issue. HP recovery after combat was the issue. At L30, HP regen was only 30hp per minute while sitting and 10 while standing.

I played a monk (EZ mode of EQ melee). Monks could bind wound up to 50% hp then hit mend. Every 6 minutes, you could be back up to 80%+ and be ready to pull again.

One blue con mob every 6 minutes. Light blue's didn't exist. Green con mobs gave no experience (before grey cons were added).

This was using bare fists (10/34 at L30). Pre-Fungi or other regen items. Pre-weapon itemization for monks.

Warriors and rogues had a tougher time because they didn't have mend. A monk can start at 80% hp and end at 10% hp and be able to repeat this process every 6 minutes. A warrior/rogue going down to 10% hp will only go back up to ~55% hp in the same amount of time. Warrior/Rogues have to either wait longer to get up to 80% hp or fight lower/weaker mobs.

I agree with this person. I melee'd primarily as my cleric solo and it was not that much harder than now. I feel natural sitting health regen rates are faster now and the easy third person view is very helpful in staying alive. Back then you didn't know you had an add many times until it was too late because you were stuck in first person and the UI blocked out a lot of the screen. It made places like Oasis for lowish characters much more dangerous.

[sunbeam]

If you go to the way back machine Ruatha (think he was on Povar) was the lead guy on figuring out a lot of the stuff you would later read about on the steel warrior.

He used to do parses, with graphs, the whole nine yards.

Pretty sure he was the guy that figured out that stats... didn't do anything. Not sure anyone knew (or was it in the game?) that dex influenced procs. But he did a bunch of tests with different gear setups to test the effects of strength on damage, and things like agility on AC (answer not much unless you drop below 75).

The guy was a goldmine if you can find his posts. Sadly the sites he used to post on like CastersRealm, Stratics, and the like are gone now.

There have been so many changes though. It's pretty well known that different classes had different damage tables. Ie, a warrior with the same weapon as an equal level paladin, the same stats (str will affect max hit and backstab damage I think), and the same skill will do more damage than the paladin.

But I'm not even sure that was in the game when I started. I know the thing about Rangers being crap didn't start till Kunark. Not sure they were tanking dragons, but no one batted an eyelash if the Ranger tanked in Mistmoore or something.

Of course that was before Kunark and its mobs.

I kind of suspect that the different damage table thing came about when Kunark came. I know Paladins had a rep as not being good tanks in a group for example, when compared to Warriors. At that time 2h'ers didn't get the enhanced main hand damage (they got the same main hand damage a yak or something would get). So they were only better in the sense that they usually had better ratios. And everyone knows what the main hand damage bonus does with low delay weapons.

Dual wield was so much better Paladins complained about Bards beating their melee damage.

All that is pre-Kunark though.

Heh, I remember most people were dumbfounded that the EBW from the Avenging Caitiff's quest in Mistmoore outdamaged the godly Yak and it's proc.

Wanted to add something to something I didn't explain too well. Someone can correct me if I am totally wrong, but I'm not certain Warrior mitigation for the same AC was better than anyone else's at that point. They got more return for worn AC, but if a warrior and ranger had exactly the same displayed ac, I'm not sure a ranger would have taken more damage. Not sure on that though. But it was really different pre-kunark.

And the thing with the DI and DB, such that warrior can never be hit for "max" compared to other classes wasn't in yet.

[sunbeam]

Hmmm sorry I missed the part in the thread title where you said "Velious" era.

But this stuff all changed so much in the early days. I know when I played the most, you had to learn to do stuff like "sit pull" to solo as a warrior. There were really only certain places like the Bat N' Bug room you could solo later on. Anything that would make a runner made it impossible.

You had to know the pathing, that was a biggie. Like at one time I could tell you when a mob in blackburrow would run, and where he would run to, and what path he would take.

Not sure I can help with this thread. Kunark mobs seem to have too many hp's for my pitiful EC tunnel weapons to deal with. So I mainly soloed in the classic zones.

I never really found a good spot in Velious, so I avoided that expansion unless I was in a group or something. Guess it was different for classes that could Sow and snare. I tried soloing in Iceclad to do some of the quests and the cats would run. If you had a bad stretch on the RNG you wouldn't kill it in time and you would get an add.

[chrsschb]

Hmmm sorry I missed the part in the thread title where you said "Velious" era.

But this stuff all changed so much in the early days. I know when I played the most, you had to learn to do stuff like "sit pull" to solo as a warrior. There were really only certain places like the Bat N' Bug room you could solo later on. Anything that would make a runner made it impossible.

You had to know the pathing, that was a biggie. Like at one time I could tell you when a mob in blackburrow would run, and where he would run to, and what path he would take.

Not sure I can help with this thread. Kunark mobs seem to have too many hp's for my pitiful EC tunnel weapons to deal with. So I mainly soloed in the classic zones.

I never really found a good spot in Velious, so I avoided that expansion unless I was in a group or something. Guess it was different for classes that could Sow and snare. I tried soloing in Iceclad to do some of the quests and the cats would run. If you had a bad stretch on the RNG you wouldn't kill it in time and you would get an add.

I remember I got my bard's SS BP around level 50. He wasn't a twink but I had some influence on getting him a raid slot since bards were in short supply. Anyways, I would take his lambent / SS wearing ass with his Yaks to Lower Guk and solo the mobs between safe hall and AM / Lord. Just spamming the bp, which would heal me for 100 HP every 6 seconds. This was back when bard's could cast ANYTHING while moving. So I never had to worry about getting interruptions.

I think I ended up getting him to 55 or 56 there. Oh those were the days :D

[Traul]

delete, too late

[provocating]

The whole post was regarding a mitigation revamp I did on Legacy of Froststone. We have had nothing but positive feedback on this change. Melee seems very classic to everyone. It is still no cake walk, but it is doable but with a lot of downtime, unless you have a partner.

[demonstar55]

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/progression-monks-we-have-work-to-do.229581/

This is one of the biggest things missing from EQEmu's melee code. AFAIK this is basically how it worked during velious as well, the main thing being that players simply didn't have high enough attack to really see the maxextra being hit. Also at launch of velious everyone was at 210 but monks who were at 220. In a patch in September of 2001 (before luclin) they revamped that code a bit giving melees of 51+ a higher melee table and monks even higher.

The attack (calc isn't shown) in that snippet is based on the return from the offense function AFAIK, which may or may not be further modified. There is also an entry condition that is missing from this snippet since it is possible to hit for weapon_damage / 10, Torven has parsed this condition to be ~115 (notice there is a min extra of 10 and the default minusfactor is 105, so possible is correct) offense. The chance which also isn't used is a roll to not add in the extra damage AFAIK, since it is still possible to hit for weapon_damage / 10 with offense > 115. (if your offense is less than 115 you actually hit like an NPC for 20 different values :P)

I'm not 100% sure what the damage table values were after that September patch during velious, I do know the 210 and 220 points are correct and the patch notes make it sound like melees moved to 220 and monks moved to higher 51+, but that's not what this code is doing.