Combat Changes with EoFFollow

Posted here by Dymus

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About a month ago Gallenite posted to tell you about the improvements to combat that are coming with Echoes of Faydwer -- and to ask for your feedback. Since then we have had a lot of opportunity to review your feedback and to test the effects of these changes on both current and new Echoes of Faydwer content. In response, we have made a number of additional tweaks and additions. The next step is to put these changes on the Test server for everyone to see and to get some additional feedback, and of course, more testing.

While a lot of the numbers you will see on Test have changed -- including mitigation, avoidance, DPS mods, haste mods, damage on spells and weapons, resists, etc. -- please keep an open mind and try the changes out yourself.

All creatures in EQ2 have had major modifications as well to balance out the player changes. Meaning, any place you see lower numbers on your character sheet, the creatures within the game have been affected the same way. The best way you can evaluate the full impact is going to be by getting out there and playing -- and then letting us know exactly what you think.

For those who like details -- here is the near complete listing of changes to the combat to date.

Damage Mitigation and Resistance
• Maximum mitigation/resistance numbers for your current level have been increased from [ Level * 80 ] to [ Level * 150 ].
• Damage mitigated now has diminishing returns, with the point at which the old system and new system meet set at 3675 armor / resist value or (52.5%) for level 70 players.
• The new mitigation cap for any type of damage is 75% which is reached at [Level * 150] armor or resist value.
• The mitigations / resistances for some item bonuses will appear to have dropped. This was due to a rounding error in their display. Their actual resistance / mitigation values have not changed in most cases.

Stat Caps
• All stat cap maximums have been increased from [ 7 * Level + 20 ] to [ 15 * level + 20 ]
• Stat benefits are now on a diminishing returns curve
• The maximum benefit that each stat provides, including power pool size, melee damage bonus, spell damage bonus, hit points, and defense has been increased
• Classes that use multiple stats for power pools have had their maximum power possible increased by up to +25% if they are high enough in both stats. This is meant to offset the difficulty of having to increase multiple stats

Avoidance Skill
• Skill caps have increased from [ 6 * Level ] to [ 6.5 * Level ]
• Base Parry chance has been lowered from 10% to 5%
• Base Deflection chance has lowered from 30% to 25%
• Increases to avoidance skills now have diminishing returns similar to the changes made for mitigation/resistance. Players experience more gains in avoidance when further away from the cap, and less gains as they reach closer to the cap

Avoidance in Combat
• Display: The way avoidance is displayed has changed. A value similar to mitigation is now used to show your overall avoidance. A tool tip displays details for those who desire more information.
• Parry Check: (Base 5%, Chance increases with additional parry skill.) The chance to parry an incoming attack is modified by level and offense skill of the mob you are fighting.
Note: A base 20% of parries turn into ripostes. (Modified by certain achievements)
• Block Check: (Shield Required). The quality of the shield determines the block chance. Block is only modified by mob level and is not a contested roll vs. mob skill.
• Deflection Check: (Monk / Bruiser only) Base 25%, Chance increases with additional Deflection skill. The chance to deflect an incoming attack is modified by level offense skill of the mob you are fighting.
• Dodge Check: (Everyone) Base chance is determined by type of armor worn. Chance increases with additional Defense Skill and Agility. The chance to dodge an incoming attack is modified by level and offense skill of the mob you are fighting.

Casting Skill
• Skill caps have increased from [ 6 * Level ] to [ 6.5 * Level ]
• Skills also use a diminishing returns curve similar to avoidance skills
• Actual hostile spell resistance modification has increased from -10% to -20% at maximum skill
• Beneficial spells that use casting skill, mostly affecting ministration and ordination, now have their power costs reduced with increased skill

Fizzling
• The entire Fizzle mechanic has been removed

Focus Skill
• Skill caps have increased from [ 6 * Level ] to [ 6.5 * Level ]
• Focus has a maximum 20% instead of 10% to prevent interrupts from taking damage
• Focus Skill also reduces the chance of spell based Interrupts, Stifle, and Stun Effects from interrupting a spell that is already casting
• When interrupted by damage a spell will attempt to auto-recast itself. The spell will try this up to 3 times before stopping this action. Using the escape key, ducking, or moving will cancel the current spell being cast as before.

Attack Skill
• Skill caps have increased from [ 6 * Level ] to [ 6.5 * Level ]

Haste and DPS Mods
• Haste and DPS are now shown as a modified score instead of a percentage.
• The Haste and DPS mods can be increased to a rating of 200
• Haste and DPS mods also use a diminishing returns curve to determine the amount of attack speed and DPS modification. This is a 125% modification when reaching the 200 point capped value.

Item Procs
Item Procs have received a general increase in proc rate. As an average the prior mechanic would calculate the number to earn 1.0 procs per minute. The new mechanic raises this value to an average of 1.8 procs per minute. Given the speed of combat within EQ2 this should see more procs per fight on average for anything which had a lower than 9% chance to proc in the previous system.

Items that proc from Physical Triggers: The proc rate for triggers such as successful attack, melee attack, or ranged attack can now be calculated by taking the delay of the weapon and multiplying it by 3.
Example: A 1.5 delay weapon which reads "Has a chance to cast X." will have a 4.5% chance to proc with each trigger condition. A 5 delay weapon with the same effect would have a 15% chance to proc with each trigger condition. The typical proc rate has moved up from 5% to 9%.

Items that proc from Spell Triggers: The proc rate for triggers such as hostile spell or beneficial spell can be calculated by taking the cast time of the spell plus the 0.5 second recovery time then multiplying it by 3.
Example: A 3 second delay spell which reads "Has a chance to cast X." will have a 10.5% chance to proc with each trigger condition. (3 second cast time + 0.5 second recovery time * 3 = 10.5).

Items that proc from Combat Arts: The proc rate for combat arts works similar to spells. Most combat arts have a cast time of 0.5 seconds and a recovery time of 0.5 seconds and are treated as if you are using a 1 delay weapon. Longer cast combat arts obey the rules in the same manner as spell triggering procs.

Spells and Poisons: Poisons remain unchanged in the rate at which they proc. Spells which apply a proc to a character also remain unchanged in the new system.

Reactive Procs: Procs which take effect after a character has taken damage, been killed, cross below a threshold, or other 'reactive' triggers have not changed.

Haste and Casing Speed Enhancements: The calculation for proc percentage uses the base value not the modified value. In this way the percentage will stay the same for chance to proc per trigger even if casting and attacking faster. It will raise the number of procs seen the higher the haste value.


Equipment Quality Levels
• The Mitigation / Resistance Values of Armor and Accessories bearing the Mastercrafted, Legendary, and Fabled quality tags have been lowered to conform to the new combat mechanics, mob difficulty, and philosophy of diminishing returns.
• The damage values of Weapons bearing the Mastercrafted, Legendary, and Fabled quality tags have been lowered to conform to the new combat mechanics, mob difficulty, and philosophy of diminishing returns.
• The mitigation and damage value gap between Mastercrafted, Legendary, and Fabled quality items has been narrowed.

Spells, Combat Arts, and Quality Levels
• The spell variables for Adept III, Master I, and Master II spells and combat arts have been lowered to conform to the new combat mechanics, mob difficulty, and philosophy of diminishing returns.
• The spell variable gaps for Adept III, Master I, and Master II spells have been narrowed. This ensures that an Adept III of a higher level upgrade spell is always better than a lower level Master I version.

Spell / Combat Art / Weapon Damage Bonuses
The damage bonus received from higher statistics for spells, combat arts, and weapon damage will no longer drop off as you level up and your cap increases.

Melee Defensive Stances
Melee defensive stances have a new effect. They now enhance the quality of armor you wear instead of adding a flat amount of physical mitigation to your character. This bonus will get more pronounced with better armor.

Class Modifications
• Assassins, Rangers, Brigands, and Swashbucklers now gain some of their power pool from strength as well as agility.
• Troubadors and Dirges now have more benefit to their power pools from agility than before.
• All Fighter classes now share the same modifier for their auto attack damage.
• Shadowknights now gain their power pool benefit from Intelligence and Strength instead of Wisdom.

Falling Damage and Safefall Skill
• Falling damage is no longer taken as a percentage of your total health.
• Distance is now the only modifier in the amount of damage taken, falling velocity is no longer a variable.
• Damage is calculated as (Distance Fallen * 125).
• A safe distance fall is 13 meters or less (Just under the height of a griffon tower platform).
• A terminal fall is 80 meters. Any fall from that height (without safefall skill or some magic) will deal 30,000 points of damage.
• Safe Fall Skill increases the safe distance fall by 1 meter for every 5 points of skill. A skill of 250 would increase the distance a character could fall without taking damage from 13 meters to 63 meters ((250 / 5) + 13).

NPC Changes
• All NPC's have had the variance on their auto-attack damage narrowed. A mob who had a base damage value of 100 could swing between 50 and 150 points in the damage they dealt. Now that same mob would be swinging between 75 and 125 points.
• Gray, Green, and Blue mobs can now present a bit more of a threat than they could previously.
• High Yellow and Orange mobs are slightly less difficult than they were previously.
• The overall damage modifier on auto-attack for most epic mobs has been reduced to bring them in line with the new combat system modifications.
• Nearly all damage immunities on creatures have been removed. Many still remain highly resistant to certain types of damage and spells but immunities should be quite rare.

As you can see, we have made a lot of small, but important tweaks to the entire combat experience. We know that the sheer number of changes can be a bit overwhelming, but we believe that these changes really benefit the overall gameplay of the combat in EverQuest II. We have received some good feedback on these changes from the EoF Beta, and now it is your turn to try them out.

Test server is seperate from EoF beta - you'll need a beta invite to sample EoF.

For the first time got in a beta, I'll enjoy a look at those combat changes. No idea if the nda is still active, according to o-gaming not, but still have to wait about 4 hours to be able to play anyway.

I believe the expression is: giddy as a child (? not English myself, that sounds like what I've heard anyway)

I thought so, it's very close to release so chances were good that the nda is lifted.

I'm not unhappy with what I've seen so far, naturally I started a Fae character (character creation screen rather different, a bit better imo) as so many others have.

The Fae are quite colourful, it's fun to see so many differences between them too, and the fact that they have a passive safe fall ability that really allows for falling from very high is sweet too.

Got to lvl 9 very swiftly, but I applied for character copying with my main monk, specifically for the combat changes and also because it'll allow me to roam pretty much everywhere easily.

Still buggy at times (but haven't played all that long so far), lots of people though, but spells took some time to cast due to some sort of lag.

If fae get an inherent free fall do the other races get special abilities as well. Troll regen, ogre's not being knocked down or stunned from the front, teir'dal stealth, etc.

I saw on the EQ2 website fourms that every race will get somthing but I dont think they have put it in yet.