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Changes to NPC Aggro AISep 12th, 2006 at 12:54 PM by Railus

Rashere breaks the news: "Pet pulling" and "tick pulling" will be strategies of the past come September 19th. From EQLive:

Over the course of beta, we've identified and corrected a number of issues that have been around for a while but were being exacerbated by the downtime changes we are making. There are two particular changes with the "call for help" routine that I want to draw attention to since they close loopholes that allow some questionable tactics that some of you may be using currently. I want you to be aware that they will no longer work after our next patch to save you the potential deaths from attempting them. These will also be in the patch notes.

When most NPCs call for help, they will only call for a small, set number of NPCs to respond to keep from swarming people with dozens of NPCs at once. There was a problem in the call for help routine that caused an NPC to not call for help again for a few seconds if it had already called for help and enough NPCs responded that they had met that maximum number the first time. This is what was enabling the so called "tick pulling" phenomenon whereby you could aggro an entire room, drop aggro, then immediate re-aggro a single NPC and it would come alone. This is now fixed and NPCs will now properly call for help every time they are aggro'd from a non-aggro state.
With the above problem fixed, we also had to address another bug in the same area to prevent just shifting the loophole form one tactic to another. This one had a similar effect, although for an entirely different reason. When a player sends a pet in to attack an NPC, the NPC uses the pet's leader to determine how the NPC reacts. In one part of the "call for help" routine, this check was missed and it was causing an NPC to not call for help if it was attacked by a green con pet of a PC. This particular bit of code is there for NPC vs NPC combat to keep NPCs from ganging up on each other, but the missing check for a PC leader caused it to not call for help if a PC sent a green con pet to aggro it. This is now fixed and the NPC is properly using the pet's leader for this check as well.

Again, both of these fixes will go out with our patch next week.

Rashere

Tags: EverQuest, News

Comments

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pet pulling no more?!

# Sep 23 2006 at 4:14 AM Rating: Decent

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77 posts

i cant belive this I'm a lvl 62 shammy and sence lvl 32 when i first got my pet he has been my Tank, i've pulled with him, its NOT Cheating its or rather is was part of being a shammy...i mean for the Tribunal's sake they only let me hit for a max of 58 when i melee, so shammys are good buffers we slow well but in a fight we are gemps all we have are slow dots minimal DD and a bad azz pet,
so like anyone would do we use our strengths and pet pull WAS one of those:(
I pet pulled Death row in PoJ single pulled no one died it was a good day 5 players got thair Flags, all by pet pulling. i mean Pet pulling WAS the normal part of my Character, now after all this time SOE thinks its cheating :(
I'm realy bummed about this..who comes up with this crap anyway, what about the Magicians, or worse yet necros (never played eather but they depend on thair pets as well) why is thair a Attack button for in the first place why not make all pets like the Enchanters? ( being sarcastic dont send me hate mail)
some times i fell like a foot ball player on the field in full gear and the Ref's stop the game and change the rules
well that was my 2cp

bug

# Sep 22 2006 at 9:54 AM Rating: Decent

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31 posts

This was never a bug/exploit. Sony just wanted to make things harder to pull and instead of being inventive they made a nerf. And for all of you people whining about being trivialised the SK was trivialised around PoP.

I waited to long to get this off my chest

# Sep 22 2006 at 8:39 AM Rating: Decent

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1)People I see this as a way of Sony slowing how fast guilds blow through content.

2)Let face it they always ***** solo/casual players. Example the respawns in DoN missions. Most big guilds were long done with DoN, when Sony changed the missions and many of my friends were pissed because they did not have end game items so DPS was nothing great. So missions became much much more difficult for the casual players and take much longer to complete. Or some of the DoDH missions that had kills requirements added to them. Again most big guilds were done with DoDH missions by the time the kill requirements where added, which again screwed the casual players. Its sad, that so many folks go to WoW because Sony in their attempt to "fix" the game make it twice as hard for casual players, then raid guild players. Easily 50% of the casual players I know have not completed their OOW spells through 70, or done have their DoDH spells. Granted at least they can get their OOW spells now that that spells are droppable, which they always should have been. Sony, because some folks enjoy exploiting and using 3rd party programs, let it go, all you have done is continued to thin out the ranks of casual players, hence the reason groups are so hard to find again out side of guilds. I have lost many good friends that can only play a few hours a week to the fact they feel they can not progress. Most have not touched GoD, half of OOW, 3/4 of DoN, 4/5 of DoDH, forget POR, atleast they will be able to enjoy some of Serpents. I think solo missions should give out high level items, if someone is willing to spend the time, even if it takes them weeks they should be able to have good items and spells. Put some better stuff on the DoN merchants and raise the cost, or make it so the tokens can be traded in for crystals after a certain level of faction is met.

Look at how many freaking LDON missions it took to max the aug stats and the cost of items at 1200 point verse 680 for the best DoN items. I will stop....

Sorry so long...I think most get where I am coming from.. the EQ community is only as good as the people in it and it seems that the ranks are thinning again...we can only merge servers so many times.

Peace

Fiegn Death pulling

# Sep 20 2006 at 9:53 AM Rating: Decent

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2 posts

Will this Effect being able to pull and using Fiegn Death? it seems that statment 1 is saying that everytime u reagro a mob he will call back those that turned away from FD

I for one like it

# Sep 18 2006 at 11:07 AM Rating: Default

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6 posts

Ok first off, if you want every little complaint answered, every class to be able to solo, no reason to group or socialize, and everything to come to you with complete and utter ease, play WoW. Secondly, I don't know about anyone else, but I am extremely happy to see this. First off, I have in the past spent hours creating a strat to do an event in a timely manner, only to have a pet puller completely trivialize it. I am a bard, and I love pulling. I love coming up with strategies neccesary to pull one mob from one side of the zone to the other side of the zone all by itself. Coming up with how to do this in different environments takes different skills and time and patience in coming up with a new strategy to do so. Rarely if ever do I just tag a mob and wait for everything else to just walk away. This is what I like about everquest, coming up with strategies to win a complicated event. Having a single strategy that you could always pull out of the bag that required little to no skill to master just felt cheap to me. Shyra for instance is an entirely too easy event with pet pulling. This is not an event worthy of yielding loot anywhere near its content with pet pulling. And even with out it, shyra is NOT THAT HARD to single pull...tinker with it and you'll figure it out. It sucks for those who created classes to use this exploit, or people who have accustomed to using this in order to progress, but thats the way the ball bounces. If you really don't like it, quit eq and go play wow. Why split anything in wow? your character can take on 4 even cons at once without problem.

FLAME ON!

I for one like it

# Sep 23 2006 at 4:39 AM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1592274645684

77 posts

you like it what are you high? correct me if i'm wrong but bards dont have pets, so whay are you even here? go back to you ear fones and let us grownups talk kids sould be seen and not heard, and i hope SOE thake your music away when your fightingso you wont feel lef out and i can gloat when your upset

I for one like it

# Sep 23 2006 at 4:33 AM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1592274645684

77 posts

you like it?! come on where is your common sence? bards are DPS and have a slamming way to mix songs what if Sony came in and said you could play only one song or you cant fight and play songs at the same time it would cripply your toon, io dont like complainig but correct me if i'm wrong but bards dont get pets soo butt out this dont concern you go back to your music and if you dont know something BE QUIET

I for one, like it ~

# Sep 18 2006 at 11:04 AM Rating: Default

__DEL__1592760872093

6 posts

wrong place whoops

Edited, Sep 18th 2006 at 3:12pm EDT by BrellGegan

People whining about raiding guilds and this patch

# Sep 18 2006 at 11:00 AM Rating: Decent

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Every other post I see is people complaining that this patch benefits end game raiders, or that somehow it shows favoritism for players who do harder content. Can someone please explain to me how the hell that makes sense?!

Do you really think this patch wont have repercussions for people that do tougher mobs? Did it ever cross your mind that quik pulls with Fade or FD may be affected by this patch? Guess who pulls raids.

Players are so quik to attack end game raiders, but what you fail to realize is that EVERY player will be effected by this, not just you. If anything, raiders will have it worse since the mobs pulled are actually challenging and can more easilly kill 54 people than trash in RS. I dont see how this will caiter to end game players AT ALL. So please, stop whining. Your not making any sense, and its really annoying. thanks.

Fix the bug without ruining the tactic

# Sep 18 2006 at 9:16 AM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1701044186816

81 posts

Why not fix the bug, by making it work sometimes, for example, if I was a mob sitting chilling at the campfire with my buddies and a green pet comes over and kicks dirt into my stew. I don't need to call for help, it would make me look like a sissy in front of my chums. I would merely emote, this punk is mine and take off after the little runt.

My guild is not a raiding guild, and most of our level 70 players have few if any level 69/70 spells. Since raid content isn't what we are looking for we have to give up a lot of the high end game. I wish SOE would open their eyes and see how much damage they are doing to the casual players that are getting by on bazaar scraps from the raiding guilds.

This is CRAP!

# Sep 16 2006 at 10:59 AM Rating: Decent

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MOST ALL of the higher end zones CAN NOT be done unless you have a good pet puller. If they insist on removing the one and only means for groups to do a dungeon then they need to revamp ALL dungeons to make them accessable. This is OBVIOUSLY another attempt at making EQ a RAID ONLY game and ******** the little guilds and groups and SOLOING toons. One more nail in the coffin of EQ way to go guys.

This is CRAP!

# Sep 17 2006 at 12:05 PM Rating: Decent

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Exactly what 'higher end zones' are you talking about? Ive never seen any zone REQUIRE you to use this tactic, and Ive seen almost every high end zone (minus deathknell.) If your an SK its not like you cant just pull one with snare and then FD. My alt is an SK and I fail to see why this is such a big issue. I mean come on: you honestly never thought pet pulling was a bug?

Edited, Sep 17th 2006 at 4:30pm EDT by LiraelLatenight

This is CRAP!

# Sep 27 2006 at 12:00 PM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1592274645684

77 posts

OK fot the last time i shall say this if SOE didnt mean for you to pull with your pet then why for hevens sake is thair a attack key, and all pets commands not like the Enchanter? tell me this

WTF!

# Sep 14 2006 at 5:01 PM Rating: Decent

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148 posts

OMFG THEYRE MAKING IT SO I CANT PET PULL THOSE STUPID B******s!

wtf is wrong with pet pulling?

Why is that a bug!?

I HATE U!

MY MAIN IS A 70SK!

Why do you hate us?

# Sep 14 2006 at 4:02 PM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1592255607946

42 posts

STOP HAVING FUN!!

HOW DARE YOU HAVE FUN!!!

We only care about the high-end raiding-required guilds. We say we care about casual players. But you all know that actions speak louder than words.

[/speaking as SOE]

I am curious as to what percentage of monthly income comes from players who raid once a week or less, versus players in uber raiding guilds. Because it seems to me that the majority of changes, and the majority of content seem geared to the raid guild players.

Maybe I am wrong, and my perspective is distorted so that I only see what is wrong for casual players like me. Maybe I just have no idea how the daily raiders get screwed as well.

But, who has been punished, and what has been lost? Have these "exploits" hurt the game? Have they allowed players to take advantage of the game so that it is no longer fun?

And one final thing: If these "exploits" have been in the game for years, hasn't that reduced the numbers for certain classes that will now be required? Doesn't that mean that, even if Puller_PC_001 has not been deleted, just retired for 3 years, it will be grossly under-geared? In other words, there won't be enough of these other classes available to allow functioning groups to form. We have been given years to make our characters fit the available strategies, and now our characters no longer no longer fit the changed strategies.

If something has been messed up in the game for years, just put up with it. Don't change it now, it's too late.

Why do you hate us?

RE: Why do you hate us?

# Sep 15 2006 at 4:02 AM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1653265120496

12 posts

Hello,

no its simply not a thing for the casual player only .
Some encounters become lots harder because of this, because the Boss could be pet pulled until now . So, you will have to deal with adds, which essentially means it needs higher numbers of players to win this .

Generally i agree with you that this bug ( and from the description it sounds like a bug ) shouldnt be fixed .

Is EQ dying?

# Sep 14 2006 at 3:48 PM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1592792210886

113 posts

Welcome to EQ, ALL nerfs ALL the time.

Sony, please think about 1 thing and 1 thing only, you only make money because we pay to play. Period. If you push us to far out of the game, we stop playing. I have a 70 Ench as a main (*ROFLMAO*) who is for the most part only getting aa's due to my lower level Necro. I have to 3 box my own group simply because I don't get groups for anything. EVER. Having said that, I have started a War to go with my Ench / Clr so that I can finally get my runes. No groups = no runes / spells.

But seriously, whatever happened to the "class re-envisionment" that was to come down. Even with every customer paying and saying "you should listen to us, we pay you" you still didn't. And that never got finished. It was only your way to nerf us some more.

As for /FEEDBACK and/or /BUG, I've been reporting a broken quest for months with no response, and the *lazy* GMs won't even confirm it's not functioning and they refuse to look into, or in fact even actually read my petitions. They tell me to look up what my fellow gamers say, which I actually included in my petition. So don't even believe that strategy will work.

Sadly though, SOE won't listen to it's player *payer* base, they will only do what they want and we just continue to pay for the privalege of having all other things taken away.

subject

# Sep 14 2006 at 3:41 PM Rating: Decent

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1 post

You all cry too damn much, it's supposed to be challenging it's a damn video game!!!! Wipe your eyes, stop your bishing and learn a new way to play. This should go w/o saying but all talented players w/ their class are exceptional because they can adapt to any and all situations. I look forward to whatever SOE can throw at us and know we always find a way to beat it. And frankly, I think they know a tad bit more about this game than any of us do no matter how long we've been playing. Peace.

This doesn't solve anything.

# Sep 14 2006 at 2:51 PM Rating: Decent

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12 posts

All this does is destroy the viability of having a bard puller. I can understand nerfing the pet pull routine but messing with the logics of NPC assist calls is too much.

Now there is little to no reason to have a bard in a group. Not when you can duo a shaman and a monk.

This "fix" was not a good idea at all.

PoP Pet pulling and nerf?

# Sep 14 2006 at 11:37 AM Rating: Decent

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285 posts

Quote:

Back in the PoP days there was a patch where pet pulling was "broken" or not working any more. The devs found the problem and fixed it so players could pet pull again.

Are you sure that's true? There's absolutely nothing that I could in any patch messages between PoP release and GoD release that mentions a "fix" to pet pulling. I didn't keep searching after the GoD release, though.

I'd challenge you to find that.

That aside, calling it a nerf is a bit obtuse. Or do you think MacroQuest is a legitimate game mechanic just because the devs haven't been able to fix that? Everyone (ok, not everyone, and I can see how a very few people may not have realized it) knew that pet pulling and server tick pulling was an exploit pretty much since it was discovered/learned about.

Next I assume you're going to say the "eliminate all fizzles" bug is intended? Despite the fact that the AA states exactly what should be happening. Will you cry "nerf" if/when that's fixed, too?

pulling

# Sep 14 2006 at 12:47 AM Rating: Decent

__DEL__1593375271139

7 posts

To start off with I am a ranger and neither of these pulling methods were ever in my tool set so this is an outside looking in view point.

The first "nerf": All this is going to do is increase paci pulling or prox pulling. FD splitting will eat up a lot of time as the puller will have to wait for mobs to split up via pathing. Hard raid "trash" becomes harder to split out dragging raid times out by a considerable amount. Over all it makes FD pulling less of an option which is what SoE has been planning for a while. Back in the GoD to OoW era A dev made a post saying that FD was never intended to be a pulling tactic but as a way to drop agro if the monk/necro/sk built up to much.

The second "nerf": Back in the PoP days there was a patch where pet pulling was "broken" or not working any more. The devs found the problem and fixed it so players could pet pull again. Now they are saying its an exploit and is being fixed. So this is an "exploit" that they have knowingly kept in the game since the PoP era (4ish years) and have fixed in the coding to ensure it would work again at least once. Now they come out, say its an exploit and say it will be fixed. This leaves me confused as to what really constitues an exploit anymore. If the dev staff is calling this an exploit then at any time any feature the devs have put into place in the history of EQ could become an exploit next week/month/year.

As a ranger this is good because I will get groups as a puller again. But then again in any indoor zone (or zone with 71+ mobs) anyone with good avoidance, timing, and the hp to get the mobs back can prox pull. All this recent nerfage makes me wonder why I still have my EQ accounts active. I guess its in hopes that TSS makes up for the 95% hatred for the PoR expansion.

How about fixing the pathing and warping?

# Sep 13 2006 at 12:49 PM Rating: Good

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How about fixing the pathing and warping (among many other) bugs rather than constantly looking for ways to chain us to your view of the "ideal" group (whether we like it or not)? Spending hours trying to put together or find one of these mythical "ideal" groups doesn't work for those who only play an hour or two (and who still pay you the same cash as those who play 10hrs a day, btw). Plus it really isn't fair to a group to join them only to leave 45min later.

There are pathing and warping issues in some zones that have been in the game untouched since the first week of release and yet you saw fit to devote resources to removing pet pulling as a technique for groups who don't have a monk or bard. Heck, you don't even include enchanters in your "ideal" group anymore. Enchanters have become two pixels away from totally useless in most higher end zones, which is why I retired mine to the status of buff-ho a couple years ago and rolled a mage to be my new main char. Now you are lowering the group utility of that character as well.

Taking away all hope of soloing or small grouping in zones that actually give a little experience will make this game so boring for casual high levels that more and more folks are just going to give up and leave for greener pastures. It seems to me you despise casual high level players because you have a long history of repeatedly making the game less fun for one class or another once they hit higher levels. Every time we figure out a technique that allows us to see a bit more of the content in a small group or solo, with one class or another, you cut off that access.

Further, I truly don't understand the distinction between game technique and "exploit" in this case (and I don't think you do either). Pet classes are using one of their abilities to single pull a mob. How is this different than a bard or monk using one of their abilities to single pull a mob? Pet classes have to do quite a bit more than simply hitting their FD hotkey and waiting for mobs to split up in order to do a single pull successfully with a pet. I honestly think it's worst sort of idiocy to completely cater to one or two classes who believe only THEY should be able to single pull. Might as well force us all to wear handcuffs while we play. It makes as much sense.

This makes me wonder: What exacty are you trying to tell us with this gesture? That we shouldn't get our characters to high level unless we raid with a big guild 5 nights a week? That unless we are in a raid guild or can spend hours building your definition of the "ideal" group, we aren't entitled to see any zones higher than WoS? That we should just play to level 50 and then leave for another game? Your motivation (and resource allocation for bug fixes) is truly a mystery and becomes more frustrating each year.

How about fixing the pathing and warping?

# Sep 13 2006 at 3:38 PM Rating: Decent

80 posts

Quote:

This makes me wonder: What exacty are you trying to tell us with this gesture?

The message I received is "if you ask for something and we decide to give it to you, we are taking something even bigger away".

Paladins got pulling taken away from them long ago. Druids, Rangers, Clerics and Chanters are mostly useless as pullers for most high end zones. Now pet classes gone from lower end zones. That pretty much leaves Monks, Bards, Necros and SKs. Makes me wonder which classes won't be able to pull next week.

How about fixing the pathing and warping?

# Sep 13 2006 at 3:32 PM Rating: Decent

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I thought the intentwas to decrease down time. How long will it take now to split mobs. Its not like Monks are so prevalant in the game that each guild has 3 of em on raids. This only helped the big guilds once again. Smaller guilds with no monk or one that is only on 3 nights a week get screwed again.

Another Exploit biits the Dust

# Sep 13 2006 at 10:30 AM Rating: Default

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Anonymous

Being a monk maybe I will get more groups with this exploit gone, since I can single pull everytime without doubt. Exploit pulling with a pet was much easier then fd pulling being that you didnt even have to split... Its funny that people are so dependent on an exploit that when it gets fixxed you got dozens of people complaining. Its an exploit, should not have been using it in the first place.

G/J IMO

Another Exploit biits the Dust

# Sep 15 2006 at 12:52 AM Rating: Decent

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449 posts

they also said FD pulling was an exploit, and if you can't get a group you likely suck.

Haha

# Sep 13 2006 at 10:10 AM Rating: Decent

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We'll work around it. Something everyone in Norrath has done before. This is not the first time we've had to go out and find a work around. =)

Pulls

# Sep 13 2006 at 9:24 AM Rating: Decent

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This doesn't affect traditional pulling at all. FD splitting and Fading will still work exactly the same as always. This only fixes an exploit which allowed people to pull an NPC without it calling for help (either using the server tick method, or by using the green pet bug). If you didn't use this exploit to pull before, you won't be affected at all.

The only valid argument against this fix is that pathing is so horrible in some places that traditional methods don't work because of buggy code. In those cases, buggy pulling code cancelled buggy pathing code.

This is probably an unpopular view, but if you have to use a bug to pull/beat content... you shouldn't be pulling/beating that content anyway.

Edited, Sep 13th 2006 at 10:26am EDT by ROzzl

question

# Sep 13 2006 at 9:09 AM Rating: Good

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why can't soe spend their effort fixing significant issues and bugs, instead of trying to make existing stuff harder by taking away tools? i, for one, had assumed pet pulling was simply a benefit of playing a pet class, at the cost of significantly reduced dps. since it takes skilland finesse to pet pull, how is it a bad thing? im unclear on the reasoning behind this. since pet pulling was, apparently, unintentional, i feel compelled to point out that video games have had strategies that werent intended by the programmers forever. sometimes, they have beens tupid things, like getting 99 lives off one turtle in mario, but often, the strategies have been wonderful, flavorful things added to the games. heck, fighting games are based on giving the players a set of tools (moves) and seeing what they do with them. some strategies are cheesy and need to be nerfed, but those that require skill are the hidden gems within the games. i think soe should read magicthegathering.com every day. they occasionally print cards just to see what players will do with them. they rarely have to ban, or nerf, any cards, much less bunches of them, even though every season sees several decks the designers diddnt foresee. i think my point is, give us tools, see what we do with them. if its not cheesy or rediculous, let us keep our hard earned tools and skills.

Sony sez...

# Sep 13 2006 at 8:56 AM Rating: Good

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Zone's actually playable? We'll fix pathing so the warps eat your char.
Able to single pull? We liked seeing 6 mobs eat groups and in higher end zones, whole raids.
Charmed pet useful? Now it's no DPS till charm breaks.
Can you solo? Not after we get the CH'ing mobs summoning your toon.

/FEEDBACK

# Sep 13 2006 at 8:37 AM Rating: Default

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Anonymous

All i can say is '/FEEDBACK' people!!!.

I see so many ***** & complain on forums & I always cant help but think to myself,do all thease people do a /FEEDBACK to let sony know how you feel & just post on forums & wounder why sony never hears about it?.

I cant help but feel if everyone sent in /FEEDBACK's on things that sony would listen. sooner or probly later :-(

I just hope that atleast half you people take a couple of min's ingame to do a /FEEDBACK or /BUG about stuff,it sure cant hert. :-)

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