Beta Test Changes to Locked EncountersFollow

Is this the return of powerleveling? What good/bad can come from this?

*** Encounter Locking ***

Encounter locking restrictions have been relaxed for non-raid encounters. Non-raid encounters have been changed as follows:

* There are no longer lock icons on you or your enemies.
* The first group or person to attack a creature will receive any reward it grants upon death, including loot and experience.
* Other players can assist in your fight by damaging your enemies or healing you.
* You will receive a reduced XP reward if your group contributes less than 50% of the damage needed to kill something.
* You can change group options and add/remove people from groups while fighting (note that fighting raid encounters still prevents this).
* Damage credit is correctly tracked if you add people helping you to the group before something dies.
* Any faction increase or decrease the creature grants will be applied to everyone the creature hates when it dies.
* In an upcoming update: If a group prefers to play by the old rules, they may make their targetted encounter exclusively locked (thus preventing help unless asked for).

Here is a detailed article explaining these changes.

It allows power leveling to the extent that you can cast your buffs and heals outside your group. AFAIK most, if not all, buffs only work on people in your group, so there will be no high level cleric HP buffs and druid damage shields etc. It seems it would be limited to adding direct damage and heals.

It also depends on whether the penalty they mention here is huge:

* You will receive a reduced XP reward if your group contributes less than 50% of the damage needed to kill something.

If it is then it's going to be hard to PL lowbies vs. much higher level creatures.

First to hit gets all experience and loot is the way WoW works, that eliminates kill stealing and ninja looting.

Personally, I like to heal people I see in trouble - so I like part of it.

It is possible to be a power leveling problem, but not that bad. To get full credit the group has to be the first to attack, so that means the PLer has to pull aggro after they get initial aggro. This will add a lot more risk then regular power lvling. It will all depends on what the reduced XP will be worth
and if it will be worth PLing.


I do like being able to help, I dont play a healer here, but in another game it is nice to see someone needing a heal and being able to help them and debuff the mobs so they can finish without dying. It is also nice on my tanker to be running by someone having trouble and to taunt the mobs and let them attack the mob while getting a breather.

All I have to say on this is that I hope that most people will play fair.

The biggest benefit as others have said above is to be able to throw out a quick buff etc. to a newb, or a heal to a person who is struggling on the brink of death. It's fun and I really enjoy helping people whenever I can so I am excited at the anticipation of being able to do this in EQII.





OBD - You are forever banned from mentoring me (assuming I am the player/friend in reference above). I would NEVER want to hit you for that large of a loss of xp and had I known (with my ignorance of all things EQ until you teach me about them ), I would have never agreed to let you do it. But that being said, YOU ROCK and I really, really, really appreciate it as always.

Mearyk mentioned:

Yes, you can be in a 6 man group with 5 mentors, and you collect an XP bonus for each of them. In addition, I think, (but I'm not sure), that the higher the mentor is in level above you, the greater the bonus is, so having 5 lvl 50s mentoring your lvl 26 would yield even more.

he also noted:

true, that!

One function I hope that is implemented is heals/buffs that /con.

Meaning, a level 50 healer can't use a level 50 heal on a level 10 lowbie. But a level 20 heal would work.

Buffs and heals can be in "tiers", and when you reach a level tier, you are now eligible for a higher level buff.

I fondly remember reaching a level threshold in EQ and being eligible for the higher level buffs. What was the one after Temperance?
Casting Temp at bank for donations!

The next step is to make buffs able to be cast upon (and stick) to those not in a group. Let someone get a bunch of buffs and head out into the world. That would bring in a whole new level of social interaction. Not to mention a new market of buffs-for-bread.

Of course since the lands are pretty tame and you can't get "trained", there is not much danger traveling from one place to another. There's a virtual population explosion of mobs. Those Gnolls just don't know when to quit!

So would someone need a bunch of buffs to go out and survive basic adventuring? Probably not. But it could be used for more difficult mobs and fights. I'd love to get timed buffs and race the clock to get to the named mob before the buffs expire. Nothing worse than your pants dropping in the middle of a fight. :)