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Patch - Test Patch Notes May 10th 2022 (1 Viewer)

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They finally posted them lol

> Test Patch Notes <


May 10, 2022
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*** Highlights ***

- Refactored the way buffs/debuffs are stored on characters and NPCs, enabling an increase in NPC maximum from 97 to 200. This required a one-time clearing of saved buffs on mercenaries and pets.
- Check out everquest.com/packs this month for the new Trying Toxicologist and Vexing Vermin Bundles!
- Mercenary tiers have been simplified. See below for details.


*** Items ***

- Added a chance for Weather-Worn Signet, Tarnished Signet, and Glimmering Signet to drop off of dragorn within The Ruined City of Dranik, Muramite Proving Grounds, and Wall of Slaughter. Crystal-Gemmed Signet have a chance to drop from pyrilen in the Riftseekers' Sanctum.
- Added the quest flag to the following items: Weather-Worn Signet, Tarnished Signet, Glimmering Signet, Crystal-Gemmed Signet, Two-Toned Signet, Discolored Signet, Dust-Marred Signet, Mastery of Mind Rune, Mastery of Body Rune, Mastery of Tactics Rune, Mastery of Arcana Rune, Mastery of Realms Rune, and Mastery of Power Rune.


*** Quests & Events ***

- Free the Goranga (Raid): It will no longer be possible to avoid the shackle effect by hiding behind a wall.
- Whispers in the Dark: The Shak Dratha Overseer can be defeated at any time during the mission and get credit for doing so.
- Close the Gate (Raid): The ravens will now be removed on success and reset. Also, NPCs should no longer be targeted by the dark aura and shining light emotes.
- Solteris Raid: Ur-Floxiz Lochmaul will now be active and ready to fight.
- Torment of Velious raid chests can once again be looted.
- Mistmoore Catacombs: The Lost Party - The two-group LDON adventure offered by Alinai Kaneriti has been updated to use the shared task system.
- The Rujarkian Hills: Rescue Bartleby - The two-group LDON adventure offered by Eewatt Halmoore has been updated to use the shared task system and should now function as expected.
- Updated the achievement "Hero's Journey >> Quests >> Qeynos Quests - Bard Report" to register quest completion if a combination of day and night shift reports are turned in.
- The Revolt of Gloomingdeep: The step "Speak to Eligist and learn about Mercenaries" is now optional.


*** Spells ***

- Druid - Debuff values now match for Cowl and Gaze of Ro, as well as Cinch and Scrutiny of Ro. This will once again allow the single target debuffs to overwrite the AE debuffs and vice versa.
- Paladin - Remorseful Effect now focuses heal spells up to level 120.
- Shaman - Added a worn off message to the Pack of Aina line of spells that add swarm pets as a cast proc.
- Corrected an issue where spells that increase incoming damage by a percentage, such as Season's Wrath, would apply their bonus twice if the target was also affected by spells that increase incoming damage by a flat rate, such as Tenebrous Sunray.
- Spells that consume the target's mana or endurance to heal or harm the target, such as Tears of Xenacious, will now report the amount of damage or healing done to the target and caster.
- Refactored the way buffs/debuffs are stored on characters and NPCs, enabling an increase in NPC maximum from 97 to 200. This required a one-time clearing of saved buffs on mercenaries and pets.


*** NPCs ***

- Updated Mayong Mistmoore to consistently use the undead bodytype.
- Updated shades in Terror of Luclin to consistently use the undead bodytype and akheva to consistently use the humanoid bodytype.
- Relm M'Lock will now send your entire party to either the Plane of Hate or the Plane of Sky when you hand in the proper stone.


*** Mercenaries ***

- Mercenaries have been simplified. There are no longer Tiers of mercenaries, only Apprentice and Journeyman ranks.
- - The Apprentice mercenaries are the former Apprentice Tier-V while Journeyman mercenaries are the former Journeyman Tier-V.
- - You must have an all-access account in order to use Journeyman mercenaries. This includes temporary all access gained through using Krono.


*** Progression Servers ***

- Enabled free transfers off Phinigel and Miragul to other non-progression servers.


*** Miscellaneous ***

- Fixed an issue that caused cloth skirt armor to display for erudite females when wearing a chain tunic.
- Fixed a client disconnect when exchanging coins at a banker.


*** UI ***

- Fixed an issue where right clicking a social would not reset the currently running social line.
- Corrected an issue that caused the keybind for toggling the visibility of the Spell Gems and Player Information windows to not work properly.
- Updated the EQ button to always have the Achievements button available on all servers.
- Corrected an issue that caused some window settings, such as lock status, to reset when zoning.
- Updated the Grab Item button in the Find Item Window to use a slider for choosing a quantity of items to grab. Using CTRL or SHIFT while pressing the button now grabs one or all of an item, respectively.


*** Previously Updated ***
- Corrected an issue that caused some disciplines to be unusable after zoning.
- Ikkinz (Raid Event) - Fixed Stalwart Defender being immune to pick pocket.
- Corrected an issue where specialization skills would reset when you zoned at lower levels.
- The Shades of Luclin have had their ability to see through invisibility reduced in cases where the change to undead body types created unintentionally hostile environments.


- The EverQuest Team
 
Debuff slots increas to 200 will be the biggest game changer in past 5 years especially under raid scenario!

Btw, iirc we used to have the TLO Target.MyBuff line borked when buffs is more than 60+ then got fixed, but this time we might need pay attention to that too:xd:
 
Out of curiosity and ignorance, was there a point to having levels other than apprentice/journeyman?
For apprentice it didn't really make sense, anyone could choose levels 1-5 so 1-4 never got used. (this may have been different at Merc inception)

Journeyman ranks 2-5 were unlocked through Seeds of Destruction progression or the HoT quest for Heroic Characters edit: 85+ characters only. At this point on live no one would do J2-4 and so it was just the J5 quest that would be a roadblock and as no one plays SoD anymore you would either need help or be high enough to solo it (~lvl 90)

I personally think this is a great change. Mercs could have a lot done to improve them but this is a quick and easy fix that will work.
 
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For apprentice it didn't really make sense, anyone could choose levels 1-5 so 1-4 never got used. (this may have been different at Merc inception)

Journeyman ranks 2-5 were unlocked through Seeds of Destruction progression or the HoT quest for Heroic Characters only. At this point on live no one would do J2-4 and so it was just the J5 quest that would be a roadblock and as no one plays SoD anymore you would either need help or be high enough to solo it (~lvl 90)

I personally think this is a great change. Mercs could have a lot done to improve them but this is a quick and easy fix that will work.
Fix for what exactly? How was anything improved or corrected in anyway? So they deleted eight merc "levels" that were originally put in place so mercs could grow and improve with your level.
The basically then fubared mercs made them available all at once and removed the chance to add Merc AA and character level inorder to get a "better" level Merc.

They took a system that was put in place to grow and gutted it to two levels free and paid.
 
Fix for what exactly? How was anything improved or corrected in anyway? So they deleted eight merc "levels" that were originally put in place so mercs could grow and improve with your level.
The basically then fubared mercs made them available all at once and removed the chance to add Merc AA and character level inorder to get a "better" level Merc.

They took a system that was put in place to grow and gutted it to two levels free and paid.
The issue this addresses is that Mercenaries are designed to be assistance to players who cannot find groups and are soloing at worst or have an incomplete group at best. The system before required the player to complete a quest, one which was easily soloable but required a Heroic Character (paid upgrade) edit: level 85+, the other required progression in an expansion that is typically empty.

For a new or returning player when you reach level 60ish your merc starts to become weak as a J1 leaving the 60-85 experience difficult as you a) won't find a group, and b) can't finish the J5 quest until 85 solo.

Mercenaries could use a complete overhaul but this is a quick and easy fix for the above problem and is exactly what was laid out in their road map, no more, no less.

My expectations of DPG are set extremely low to avoid disappointment.

Edited: I was mistaken on Heroic Characters being required for the HoT J5 quest, got it mixed up with the Heroic Augments.
 
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It’s just simplifying the system. When there is only one effective choice, having the other choices is moot. So they just removed the bad choices so people don’t pick them.
 
The issue this addresses is that Mercenaries are designed to be assistance to players who cannot find groups and are soloing at worst or have an incomplete group at best. The system before required the player to complete a quest, one which was easily soloable but required a Heroic Character (paid upgrade), the other required progression in an expansion that is typically empty.
No. Any paid account with a toon at level 85 can do the merc upgrade quest. I've done this at level 85 on every class in the game and it's stupid easy with a Apprentice merc in tow.
For a new or returning player when you reach level 60ish your merc starts to become weak as a J1 leaving the 60-90 experience difficult as you a) won't find a group, and b) can't finish the J5 quest solo until about level 90.
The J1 merc, that a paid account gets, is just fine up to level 85. I'm not sure what you're talking about. There is no difference between a J1 and J5 merc before level 85, this can be tested with the SoD quest line at level 75 if you wish. It's so pointless to get the j5 that no one does it.

Mercenaries could use a complete overhaul but this is a quick and easy fix for the above problem and is exactly what was laid out in their road map, no more, no less.

My expectations of DPG are set extremely low to avoid disappointment.
There was no problem this fixed. I think you've misread the statement:
"
*** Mercenaries ***

F2P and Gold ranks.


All they have done is created a F2P merc and a Gold Merc. There has been no change to merc abilities nor have mercs been upgraded in anyway.
 
No. Any paid account with a toon at level 85 can do the merc upgrade quest. I've done this at level 85 on every class in the game and it's stupid easy with a Apprentice merc in tow.
My mistake, edited my original post to avoid confusion.
 
Y'all really whining about removing merc ranks that no one used anymore anyway instead of rejoicing about npc debuff slots being more than doubled?! Time for 8 necros/raid!
 
Y'all really whining about removing merc ranks that no one used anymore anyway instead of rejoicing about npc debuff slots being more than doubled?! Time for 8 necros/raid!
Not whining. Just pointing out what was alluded to as a revamp in the dev letter turned out to be a huge, meh.

As far as rejoicing over more buff slots helping raids? Maybe, next year, if I still have a raid toon left.
 
Not whining. Just pointing out what was alluded to as a revamp in the dev letter turned out to be a huge, meh.

As far as rejoicing over more buff slots helping raids? Maybe, next year, if I still have a raid toon left.
That's fair. Hopefully this is just step 1 of the revamp or something.

On a related note: I wonder if this means a necro nerf is coming up soonish. They have to know how OP they are right now and that they just opened the door for every raid to start pulling in alt necros to use up those shiny new slots
 
On a related note: I wonder if this means a necro nerf is coming up soonish. They have to know how OP they are right now and that they just opened the door for every raid to start pulling in alt necros to use up those shiny new slots
Or they realize players need to be able to molo and raid?
 
i suspect they were doing some "easy low hanging fruit" with this merc change, so they can do their full revamp later - or lololol
 
Odd. This is exactly the merc revamp I expected. And in today's game, the one that makes the most sense.
I was hoping for more Merc AA and new Merc levels, for example a "Master" level with more commands similar to pet commands and more Merc types as well such as a utility Merc with bard like abilities...

But hey when I hear revamp I'm thinking reinvent not whatever this was.
 
- Refactored the way buffs/debuffs are stored on characters and NPCs, enabling an increase in NPC maximum from 97 to 200. This required a one-time clearing of saved buffs on mercenaries and pets.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That's the most significant change DPG has made to the raid game in fuckin years. It's like 10 years late.
 
The J1 merc, that a paid account gets, is just fine up to level 85. I'm not sure what you're talking about. There is no difference between a J1 and J5 merc before level 85, this can be tested with the SoD quest line at level 75 if you wish. It's so pointless to get the j5 that no one does it.

You had me second guessing myself so I figured I would check it out. The first image is a level 75 J1 Merc with 3/28 Improved Health, 10/28 Improved Mana unequipped. The second image is my test copy from the same character and the new rankless Journeyman Merc.

J1.JPGJ5.JPG
tim-robinson-i-think-you-should-leave.gif
 

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Patch - Test Patch Notes May 10th 2022

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