For the last week or so on Kithicor the discussion in 70-79 has revolved around one thing and one thing only. The ‘nerf’ coming to procs. What is said nerf? Well simply put people are doing too much dps. So this change that is coming will tone it down, and it will tone it down by quite a huge amount for certain classes. What the change is going to do is remove any bonus’ that currently get stacked onto your procs. This means they will no longer crit, nor will they be affected by base spell damage or + spell damage or anything more then achievements and what have you.
This is going to mean a lot less dps especially for scout classes, and enchanters who rely on those procs to do their extra damage. Now, if you don’t raid you may not think this is such a big deal, and in fact I personally don’t feel like it’s that big of a deal. Not because I don’t think dps will drop drastically, it will (take a look at an ACT parse to see how often you crit on a proc and you’ll be surprised at the amount of damage it counts for) BUT the reason I’m not all upset about this change is because: We should be used to adjusting for things like this.
That’s right. Games change. Things that were once a good idea some times are not any more. As players we should be adept at rolling WITH the changes and finding new methods of combating it. If your DPS is going to drop THAT much that not having procs crit is going to significantly affect your progression and your game play then find a way to change that, be it more procing items (or perhaps less), master spells, gear, whatever. Fights will take longer – healers are going to be hit VERY hard with overloaded heals and a few other spells no longer being affected or able to crit. Why everyone is screaming that the sky is falling before the changes are even on test instead of acting maturely and sending in feedback about it, I have no idea. Remember that fighter revamp that was supposed to happen? People sent in their feedback and the idea was scrapped. Despite those of the general gaming audience who like to paint the employees of SOE with devil tails and horns, the developers DO actually listen, and contraire to what we as players may think – they do try to have the best interest of the player base at heart and they know what they’re doing! If you don’t like a particular change and have good solid reasons and proof as to why, then feedback it and let them know! If your guild is affected THAT much by the change and you can SEE this with some solid proof on the test server and the whole game is going to crumble and collapse because of this one change then let them know – logically.
Every time a big change comes people break out their ‘I’m leaving’ card and roll it around in channels for all to hear. Wait for things to get situated on the test server before breaking out the doom and gloom, and then go through the proper channels if it does affect you so much as to be game breaking. That’s all I’d like to see.
Aside from the general chatter in channels – Kasul managed to inch his way to level 71 yesterday, which was amazing. I didn’t spend a great deal of time in game (we all have our days) but I did manage to level the dirge to 76 and she’s part way to 77 now. 9th level 80 here I come!
Wpus, Ultann, and I headed to Crypt of Agony in the hopes that either Ultann’s Farseer would drop (negative) or the Cardiocutter would drop (also negative) or even the burdened signet (another no). The guild is crawling along to level 31 and more amenity which is fantastic at least. Afterwards I had enough energy in me for a Maidens run so we attempted to get the healer ring to drop (no luck) but – the fabled gi did drop, and I quickly relogged to my dirge to pick it up since scouts can use it.
One of these days the items we’ve been trying to get for well over a month will drop. Until then, we’ll just keep trying!
I hope everyone has a fantastic Friday, and a delightful weekend. I’m not sure where I’ll end up yet, but as always if you’d like to contact me you can find my information on the top left hand side of this site. Best bet is typically xfire or twitter, as I keep those up constantly.
Safe travels, see you in Norrath!
Some really good points, Stargrace. I think people react they way they do to nerfs for 2 reasons:
1. There is a proven history of developers making radical changes that don’t meet the approval of the game populace. SW:G NGE is an example of this.
2. People use the Internet to overreact. It’s an anonymous gateway for being a twat. :)
Well I think SOE has some joint guilt in this outcry. Maximizing DPS is *the* path to success in EQ2. When you go into a pickup group on my server (Valor) there is at least one group member who has a DPS parser running. You hear constantly comments like “Our DPS is too low, we will not take the boss down”, “We don’t have the DPS to go to GuK”, “We need more DPS in our Raidforce”, etc., etc. DPS is even a game term, there are items that have +dps in thier stats. If you have decent DPS, you don’t need to care for the scripts that were implemented to be discovered by the players. You just burn anything down. Only for the highest difficulty you need to bother with scripts and try to understand the game. My wife plays an Illusionist. The first thing she hears when she joins a pickup group is: Don’t mezz, we just burn the adds down. Mezzing is only needed for hand full of key encounters, where the game designers explicitly scripted the nedd for a mezzer. And then comes SOE and says: stay calm, we need to cut down your DPS.
The problem isn’t with the adjustment on a personal level. In most of the higher level circles I socialize in, even the other theorycrafters understand that on some level the nerf needs to occur. The problem isn’t the nerf itself, but rather the timing.
Adjusting DPS across the board during the middle of an expansion (and at a time of the year where guilds are traditionally having issues getting members to log in, mind you) means that there will be all sorts of negative ripples felt across the board. Content – especially higher end heroic and epic content – was designed and tested with procs in their current state. Removing 10% or more of an individual’s DPS may not seem like much, but when we can see those changes across 6 different players in a group or even across a full 24 person raid force, the collective nerf really starts to hurt (and the procs won’t just affect damage, either – healing will be similarly affected). If all of this occurs without similar downtuning occuring with the content we’re used to hitting then we have a situation where raid targets which a guild previously had on farm status could suddenly be next to impossible to kill.
It’s a real fear – not just because it will take time to adjust to, but because it could really spell the difference between some members of a guild logging in or not. The true raid guilds (the guilds built around raiding) will “adjust” – by recruiting members from less serious raid guilds, which themselves will also be dealing with the same attendance concerns. Suddenly those guilds will find themselves needing to recruit and they’ll go down to the next tier of guilds looking for members capable of filling in the gaps…and so on and so on.
Oh sure, the sky isn’t falling, but for members of guilds which would normally struggle with attendance and targets at this time of year anyway, this is just one more problem to deal with – a problem that doesn’t need to occur mid-expansion.
Even then, the real concern is