Producer's Letter, September 2005

It's been a couple of months since we've done one of these and there's more going on in EverQuest II than there ever has been before.  While we've added all kinds of new places to play in and quests to do, this time we're more focused on the overall feel of combat and encounters.

For those of you who keep up with the forums, some of this is going to be things that you've heard before.  For those who haven't, some of this may come as a surprise. 

Many people will be relearning parts of their characters, getting used to new spell lines and working with altered buffs.  That's a lot for us to ask, and we realize that.  As a way of thanking you for sticking through the effect this will have on your first few sessions, we'll be running a week of Bonus Adventure Experience for characters under level 50 beginning the day that Desert of Flames launches.

I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about what it is exactly that's going on with the game, what you can expect to see on Tuesday 9/13, and our reasons for bringing you these combat changes.

With Live Update #13, we are introducing significant changes to the way combat works and how spells behave. The main goal of these changes is to increase the fun and challenge of EverQuest II. Some of the ways we are going to accomplish this goal include:

• Adjusting spells and combat arts to ensure that damage, healing, and utility are more proportionate among the classes.
• Making spell upgrades more meaningful and satisfying by adding new spells and arts to better fill out character progression and put the emphasis on distinctiveness at the subclass level.
• Removing damage mitigation from NPCs so that your spells and arts do damage in the range listed when you examine them.
• Making the con color of your opponent a lot more meaningful to better indicate the level of challenge you're about to undertake. For example, a red-con opponent should be something you want to avoid, an orange-con opponent should indicate an extremely tough fight, and so on.
• Removing item growth so that comparisons between items are clearer and upgrades feel more satisfying.
• Smoothing out player and NPC progression so there are no longer sudden increases in difficulty around the class and subclass levels.
• Addressing cases where some characters could be made virtually immune to attack through buff stacking.