Tuesday, July 04, 2006

More on NPC Changes

Some NPCs are likely hitting for more and others for less than before the patch. The change involved switching old world NPCs over to newer systems. Old NPCs all had hand-set values, which led to a lot of variance from NPC to NPC even within the same level range due to different designers making different NPCs (the dreaded "under con"). It also made it very difficult to tune since each individual NPC has to be tracked down and changed if you decide a certain range of NPCs needs to be adjusted.

Under the newer system, NPCs of the same level start with the same baseline values and modify from there based on the NPCs capabilities and class (warriors have more hps, giants hit slower and harder, werewolves are vulnerable to fire, golems have low intelligence, etc.) so depending on what the NPC was set at before, it may have gained or lost damage dealing capabilities in the conversion or it may be dealing similar damage, but in a different fashion (hitting harder, but slower for instance).

This only affected NPCs who weren't already on the new system, which is basically NPCs from Original EQ, Kunark, Velious, and Luclin. It was also limited mainly to NPCs below level 50 and excluded event NPCs, which have to be tuned case by case regardless.

If you come across any particular NPC that seems to be way out of line compared to other NPCs of the same level around it, feel free to call it out and I'll go have a look. I'll just need the zone and the full name of the NPC to find it.

Rashere - EQ Lead Designer

Full thread is here.

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