My thanks to Baelish from Casters Realm, he got his log parsed and posted faster than I did. (but we both beat SOE, hehee)
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Absor: Welcome to the chat.
Absor: Thank you for coming. We'll be taking questions about the upcoming enhancement to melee classes. If you haven't read the outline for those changes, please visit EverQuestlive.com
Dev's Corner to read up on the proposed changes. Ask us anything you'd like about the new system or melee in general. If we don't have time to answer them all here, we'll be recording them
Paul Carrico: Evening everyone. I am Paul Carrico, Assistant Lead Game Designer on EverQuest. Or as others have known me, Frizznik the Gnome.
Todd Schmidt: Hello, I am Todd Schmidt, Assistant Lead Programmer on EverQuest. I am known has Hobart on Test Server.
John Troy: Hey, I'm John Troy, Game Designer on EverQuest
Oliver Smith: Hello everyone. I'm Oliver J. Smith, the Lead Designer of EverQuest Live & Expansions. Others may remember me as Valtron.
Jamey Ryan: Hey, I am Jamey Ryan, Lead Programmer on EverQuest.
Ryan Barker: Hi, I'm Ryan Barker game Designer for EQ, sometimes known as Rytan.
Absor: *Wilhelm_Lany* Hi. I have a three-fold of questions. 1) Can we expect any changes in terms of agro on demand; instant agro generation, without waiting for an opening.? 2) how will increasing the endurance bar work, in terms of getting higher endurance, and endurance regen? 3) how will accessing these new skills once the opening is available work?
John Troy: 1) Yes, the system we're getting allows us to create abilities that aren't tied to openings. We will be giving warriors more options for aggro generation
John Troy: 2) The endurance bar is based on your melee stats and level. Regen is currently based on your level
John Troy: 3) There will be an extra UI window to put hotkeys for the new skills, which will be accessible with keyboard shortcuts
Ryan Barker: we're still tuning specific values so we don't have actual numbers set in stone yet for endurance costs and regen.
Absor: *Galidin* How do you intend to maintain the desirability of knights in your new melee system when they already produce far less damage then pure melee, while you fix core issues such as taunt which have been the strong suit of knights?
Ryan Barker: There's several aspects of the melee revamp, one aspect of which is the new opening system. There's plans on addressing other specific problems with melee in addition to the new system.
Ryan Barker: The goal is to create a balance where knights and warriors both have equal desirability in different situations.
Ryan Barker: We're really excited about all the new changes we're making and we're anxious to get them out on test where we can tune them and see them in action.
Absor: *Coronis* When are you anticipating these changes going live on regular servers?
Oliver Smith: Our changes are expected to go live during the December 16th update that'll be happening next month. We also plan on introducing them to the Test Server very soon. Feel free to log on the Test Server and use /feedback to tell us what you think about our changes. We'd be happy to hear everyone's thoughts on the systems that are being created.
Absor: *CeNo65-FOH* How will acumen, zing and others spells with similar effects, pertain to the new changes?
Ryan Barker: We're removing the old invigor type effects that restored stamina entirely for now. It's possible we'll be adding endurance regen abilities later on but for now we don't want melee to be any more dependant on getting buffs to make use of the new system.
Ryan Barker: We decided to do that because it's really an entirely new system, and has very little to do with how the old stamina bar worked.
Absor: *Hamen* Will these Melee changes effect everyone from level the first level on?
Paul Carrico: You will be able to take advantage of the new melee opening system when you begin receiving new combat abilities at level 20.
Absor: *Illydth* As far as openings go, will any class be able to create an opening for themselves or are openings only created by certain classes?
John Troy: You will be able to take advantage of openings that you create. Some openings will work for everyone, but there's no link between your opening and someone else's. There are no combinations or dependencies on other players.
Absor: *ScootD* How can you acquire the new melee abilities?
Ryan Barker: The new abilities will be acquired by taking a "skill tome" to your guild master and he'll teach you the skill. Most of the basic skills will be available on vendors, while a few high level ones will be drops. Right now we're planning on giving almost all of the sub 60 skills on merchants and having the 60+ skills using a system similar to the parchments quests in Planes of Power. From there on out we'll most likely make use of the same methods that you already use to acquire any other type of item.
Absor: *Lendaor* are many openings going to be based on mob placement? Such as from behind the mob as opposed to being in front?
Ryan Barker: None of the abilities currently take advantage of your position relative to the mob, so no you won't have to be behind or in front of the mob in order to take advantage of the new abilities.
Absor: *Badu* Will pure melee have their current DPS lowered to take into account the extra dps from this system?
Ryan Barker: No, there will be no decrease in melee's DPS to account for the increase from the new system. We're creating the system in such a way that they'll fit in right on top of the old one.
Absor: *Subayai* Will disciplines be overhauled are or you simply transferring them over to this endurance system? Most melees only use 1 or 2 disciplines, because the others serve no useful purpose in their current state.
John Troy: We'll be making changes to some of the disciplines that aren't very useful, as well as giving them different timers. You will still only be able to have one discipline going at a time
Absor: *Flaash* How long will the play have to take advantage of an opening, and how will excessive server side Lag (elemental planes) handle this?
John Troy: We're still tuning it, but our goal is to make the strategy be in what skill you decide is best to use at the time, not in fast-reaction or twitch gameplay
Absor: *Sabrosia* HOW will these openings be presented? For instance, will a new window open - and we click a button - will we have to issue a command?
Todd Schmidt: There will be a UI indicator that pops up when you can activate an opening. And yes, you will be clicking a button as opposed to typing in a command. Once you activate the opening, that same window will show the opening effect.
Absor: *Dranix* will jumping to negotiate obstacles or people remove from my endurance pool for combat and disciplines?
Ryan Barker: Jumping will drain a portion of your endurance yes, but it's a relatively minor amount.
Absor: *Tenludar* How will skill points be handled for warriors that have already progressed in the game? Will a level 65 be expected to spend hours doing nothing but training to get their skills up?
Ryan Barker: You won't need to use skill points in order to learn the new skills, they're either on or off, there's no period of bringing them up to full power so to speak.
Ryan Barker: The only thing you need to do is give the tome to the guild master and you'll have the full skill.
Absor: *Drewon-FoH* Will there be any new AA skills that are tied to, or create, these new melee abilities?
Ryan Barker: There will AA abilities that will effect the new system yes. We don't have a hard and fast list for it yet though.
Absor: *Barney* it was mentioned some openings are available after certain skills go off, like parry. What about classes who do not have certain abilities. Like monks for example who lack parry.
John Troy: For monks, it's based on dodge, block, and riposte. We're tuning the rate that they happen based on the skills each class has.
Todd Schmidt: In addition to these melee changes, we have made a few others separate from this. All warriors regardless of level will now mitigate a percentage of all incoming melee damage. Monk will also now be able to dodge when being hit from behind, this should aid their pulling abilities.
Absor: *Voldeth-BB* How will the new system affect a melee's role? Clearly it will support the tanking of a warrior, but what of the monk? What will their role be?
John Troy: The melee skills aren't limited to the dps or defense of the player that uses it. There are debuffs and group affects as well. The goal with the skill sets is to provide more of a role for the pure melee during combat
Absor: *VALBARR* It has been stated by Ryan Barker that position won't affect the skills, but in the chat overview, it states that position can change the effectiveness of certain skills ?
Ryan Barker: The reference to the positional aspect in the doc on the website was an error. We're not going to have skills dependant on position.
Absor: *Dakkon* how many moves are you planning to introduce?
Ryan Barker: We're planning on over 20 skills for each class to begin with and we'll be adding even more in the future.
Absor: *KyrosKrane* I apologize if this was asked before; I missed the first half of the chat. Assuming an extended fight (e.g., Luclin bosses), how many openings per unit time could each player of an appropriate class expect?
John Troy: We're still tuning it. We're looking at a few per fight, though. We're aiming for making each opening more important, not something that is making you hit an extra 20 keys a minute
Absor: *Avelariel* Can we make absolutely clear, these openings are solely for warriors, rogues and monks? Unless that's not the case
Ryan Barker: Yes we're only adding the new opening system for warriors, rogues, and monks. The discipline system revamp will be for all classes that currently make use of disciplines though.
Absor: *Woody_GU* How exactly does this re-establish balance? Why does this constitute a "fix"? And not a bandaid on top of a semi-broken existing system?
Ryan Barker: The new system is only one aspect of the melee revamp, there's several other changes in the works for them as well.
Paul Carrico: You can quote Barker in the comics Woody.
Ryan Barker: One of the major advantages of the new system is allowing us to more easily add new abilities to the pure melee classes.
Ryan Barker: There's several aspects of the existing system that are going to be adjusted, I'd keep an eye on test server if you're interested in more specifics.
Absor: *Arlos-LOS* If openings are tuned to block/dodge/riposte, what happens if we're not tanking? This would seem to be most applicable to monks & rogues. How do we activate the new abilities if we're, say, fighting a raid mob and doing DPS?
John Troy: There are other events that trigger openings based on your regular attacks. If you're in a situation where you aren't tanking, you'll get more of those kinds of openings.
John Troy: You have a chance to trigger an opening on any attack or special attack
John Troy: NPC's also have a chance to "fumble," creating an opening that anyone fighting it can take advantage of
Absor: *Layn* How will the new skills affect aggro if successfully used?
Ryan Barker: There's several new abilities planned that will effect aggro generation. Some might increase your aggro while others might lower it.
Absor: *Adorae* just fix taunt? LOL
John Troy: Saying that taunt is the one and only issue is fairly shortsighted, I think. Pure melee have very few strategic decisions to make, don't get new abilities with an expansion the way casters do, and don't get as much from an item with both hp and mana. These are all issues that people have raised, and this system gives us a way to address them.
Absor: *Razorback* Will debuff disciplines stack, or will having more than one person using that make it a wasted use?
Ryan Barker: It really depends on the debuff. Generally there will be enough different abilities you can take advantage of that you'll have several skills that will be useful even if you have several of the same class present.
Absor: *faithcrusher* When an opening exists, you will be offered more than one option? Like one that would be aggressive in nature and one that would be defensive?
Todd Schmidt: When you are presented with an opening, you will have to make a decision on what type of ability you want to use. There will be many per opening type. And there are a few opening types.
Absor: *Depen_Hoss* Will class specific items be adjusted to add endurance, or will we need to look for new items?
Oliver Smith: We do plan on adding endurance stats onto existing items. We plan to have this done at the same time the new system is introduced next month (Dec. 16th).
Absor: *Kilbane_luc* Will we have to buy a new expansion to use these skills too?
Paul Carrico: This is a free feature. It will become available to everyone!
Absor: *Illydth* VERY important question: Since we have a chance to trigger a special attack with every attack, does it then mean that haste and dual wielding and double attacking means more "openings"?
John Troy: More attacks will help a little, but in general they scale around delay
Absor: *Aeria* Question, this sounds great and all and maybe I missed this point..but if the openings are part of our text..thats ok for groups but major raids where the text OFTEN becomes sluggish means we will miss the opportunity to strike...is there going to be a visual clue?
John Troy: The opening is going to display on the UI - you won't have to watch your textbox for them
Paul Carrico: Another thing for warriors that some of you may have noticed on test is that you will now get a return message when taunt is used, so you will know if it was effective.
Absor: *Aalek* Will the abilities have "cast" times? Can they be interrupted by the NPC? Can pure melee NPCs use the abilities against players?
John Troy: No, skills, like bash, kick, and taunt, are instant.
Paul Carrico: The taunt return message will be for everyone, not just Warriors.
Absor: *Bumpper-Test* Will Taunt be increased for warriors?...Its a simple question that I know a lot of warriors want to know
John Troy: Yes, we're giving warriors skills to better gain and keep hate.
John Troy: We're not changing the way Taunt itself works. We're adding a new skill that doesn't require an opening, as well as others that do, to address the issue.
Oliver Smith: There have been a few questions with regards to upcoming expansions and features. At this time we cannot go into detail about what's in development. However, please make sure to watch the EverQuestlive.com site for more information over the next few weeks.
Absor: We're hoping to do this on a more regular basis. It's a lot of fun for us, and hopefully provides some useful information.
Absor: That's all the time we have. We should have a transcript posted on the site tomorrow. Thank you all for stopping in!
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Comment as you will
But. Please remember too keep comments polite and non-flaming.. I understand some will like and dislike these changes.. but this
is not a flame SOE post...
please just keep that in mind =)