Went to kill Lodizal yesterday, and when I tried to charm Corudoth, much to my supprise, I got the message "This NPC cannot be charmed". **** you SoE, **** you.

par for the course man. what you expect

Shouldn't be surprised, quest NPCs with too many hp aren't meant to be charmed. All you really need to solo Lodizal anyway is a large mana pool.

I bet they did the same to...Bloodmaw? in the Great Divide too. He was permarooted, level 20ish, doubled for 80 and had about 50k hp.

I can't believe you're angry about that. You've been using something that's somewhere between an oversight, an exploit, or a bug to clomp an overcamped named for saleables. What did you really expect?

I was passing through Iceclad this afternoon (Friday, April 9, 2004) and a druid had Corrudoth dire-charmed. I saw it on track with the preceding colon (:Corruduth) and sent him a tell. Working as usual.

Worked fine Wednesday night on MM server.

but now that you've brought more attention to it.... it won't be for long.

/cackle

Heh ... Charming the turtle is an exploit. Getting angry over this fix reflects poorly on Toprem. It's easy enough to just grab a tank and kill him. Hell, tank him yourself!

...

Please explain how it is an exploit when all he is doing is hitting the Dire Charm button, and the NPC is subsequently charmed?


Thanks.

Please explain how it is an exploit when all he is doing is hitting the Dire Charm button, and the NPC is subsequently charmed?

Since DC contains zero risk to the charmer (no breaks), it was balanced by a level limit. DCable mobs are not meant to stand toe to toe with an exp mob at the level that a 59 enchanter, druid or necro would hunt.

Corudoth is a quest mob and as such has hundreds of thousands of hitpoints. More than enough to allow him to tank Lodzial with zero risk for the druid or enchanter. Phatz Lewtz for zero risk.

Please tell me you didn't just pretend innocence of this insanely unbalanced situation. Charming Corudoth may not be an exploit since he is a level 1 animal tagged mob (kinda like DCing a bat in Greater Faydark). Using him to solo Lodzial is an exploit since level 1 mobs are not supposed to be able to kill a Velious era raid level mob (not at all like DCing a bat in Greater Faydark).

Still not an exploit. Taking advantage of low DI resulting in poor design may be aggressive PvV play, but it's not an exploit. The mob's level is appropriate for DCing. The mob's HPs apparently are not being fiddled with...they are what they are supposed to be. It's all working exactly as designed.

Of course, it may be bottomfeeding, but another name for bottomfeeding is "efficient harvesting of resources." Always a good thing for the economy.

DC does have its risk when fighting a dispelling mob. (doesn't pertain, but I though I'd throw it in.)

I'd also like to point out that being able to DC corudoth isn't a new thing, and without a doubt the concerns about having Corudoth being charmable has been petitioned and emailed multiple times.

a Velious era raid level mob

Raid level when velious was first introduced at that. It was the first "boss" in velious that anyone ever saw. (SoV was released in 2000.)

The point is - Whether you believe that it is unbalanced that a Druid or Enchanter who is at least level 59 and has the 40ish or so AA's neccesary for dire charm is able to kill a 4 year old decent loot mob from the beginning of the Velious expansion or not.. It is not an exploit.

It may not be an exploit, but it is obviously not intended to work that way anymore which makes it an exploit in SOE's eyes. Before anyone else bemoans the change, may I point out that their is a disclaimer that says SOE can change anything they want about the game at anytime.

It may not be an exploit,

And it isn't... which is exactly what my post was about. :)

And from what I gathered today talking to people, DC still works on Corudoth.

Situations like Corudoth and Dire Charm should be examined by the developers and rectified. Simple as that. I do not know about other players, but I would much prefer to earn anything I equip by killing the mob and looting it myself. I do not care for bazaar farmers that camp mobs like Lodizal, 24/7. I wondered in the past, what EQ would be like without any coinage and only a barter system for an economy. Trade only for what you can use, what you need, not for what sells the most.

Did you ever think that there is the possibility that it might be OK with the Devs? (going off of the basis that it hasn't been changed from what I heard yesterday, its seems like "OMG they nurfed fungi!" 2.0 thusfar)

I say that because the so-called "problem" has been around for many moons, and it has been petitioned and emailed far more than one time wherein it questions the validity of being able to DC Corudoth.

And how can you say they aren't earning it? The player spent hard hours leveling to the appropriate level. The player spent hard hours leveling to gain the Alternate Advancement points necessary for such a feat. The player spent hard hours (or luck by zoning in and seeing him) to find that wandering turtle called Lodizal. Sure, it isn't like 4 years ago where it took 2-3 groups to kill.... but it is still a earned kill. Shamans can solo him also.... in case you didn't know.

Hell, tank him yourself!

I tried >< I got him down to 60% while I was at 25% mana and I just egressed. Next time Ill get KEI and try it while being more prepared.

Shamans can solo him, sure. They are doing it with their own abilities, not using an NPC whose hit points are greater than appropriate for a mob of their level.

Yes, and one could say that charming that mob is using a druid's own abilities... who is to say what an appropriate amount of HP per mob level is, when that amount changes depending on the expansion and zone and class of mob?

The debate is pointless, however, as the only opinion on the issue that matters is whoever's in charge at SOE this month.

Not to burst any bubbles here, but who's to say what is appropriate? Sony thought it appropriate for the NPC to have so many HP, and thought it appropriate to flag that mob as 'animal'.

The turtle's level, as it was designed, subjects it to many player abilities which are based upon (or restricted by) mob level, regardless of that mob's attributes -- be they in the form of spells or unique procs or multiple attacks or backstabs or lifetaps or fast regen or... extra hp.

Personally, I've never DC'd the mob in question but I'd never accuse someone of committing a bannable offense for doing it. If for some strange reason DC was working on a mob that was ABOVE the minimum required level, then yes that would certainly be an exploit.

quest NPCs with too many hp aren't meant to be charmed.

You need to qualify what is "too many hp" before you can make assumptions about what was "meant" by the game's designers. I'm not going to name them here, but there are definitely other charmable (and DCable) quest NPCs, as most chanters know. The only difference in this rare case, was that the NPC also happens to be an animal; so are you just upset because druids can use it too?

~Firemynd

You need to qualify what is "too many hp" before you can make assumptions about what was "meant" by the game's designers.

Well, hundreds of thousands of hitpoints for a level 1 mobs seems out of wack. Considering he's flagged uncharmable now (still flagged animal), I'm pretty sure I know what the game designers meant.

You mean, what the game developers mean *now*. Which has, historically, often little or nothing to do with what was originally intended. One of my favourite summaries of that sort of thing, from a monk last year:

Let's think of a few things that were 'not intended'

1) Quad kiting.
2) Camping
3) Pulling (at all)
4) Root-kiting
5) Aggro-kiting

Not intended no longer means anything. Sorry, it doesn't. It implies that the Dev team has had a consistent vision since the beginning, which is obviously incorrect. For that matter, what incarnation of the Dev team are we on now? 2? 3? 4?

Saying that feign pulling was never intended dodges the stated fact that pulling at all was never intended. Hence, 'lull' was not the 'intended' pulling tool since there was, in fact, no 'intended' concept of pulling.

Let's be blatantly honest here. Whichever team of people is currently the Dev team, will more or less arbitrarily make game design decisions based on their views of what EQ should be. These decisions may or may not be consistent with decisions of prior dev teams (by and large, they're not). That's it, folks.

1) What was 'not intended' by a prior dev team may be intended by that dev team at a later point in time or by a later dev team.
2) From 1, there is not necessarily any consistency in the 'intendedness' of a concept/skill.
3) It's not unknown for a dev team to say that something was 'not intended' by them, but to create content with it in mind and/or allow it to remain in game for an indefinite period. (There's a term for this with respect to laws, but I can't think of it)
4) From 1,2,3, saying that something was 'not intended' without giving a time reference and demonstrating that this 'not intended' thing was actually actively discouraged doesn't say anything, other than the dev team can do whatever they want.

To be blunt, the Dev team can change whatever they want, whenever they want, and the interests of the player base are irrelevant.

To attempt to use the inconsistency of the dev teams as some sort of argument is asinine.

If the dev's decide that they didn't intend bards to be able to run fast, Thott could log on tonight and discover he's a level 1 dancing girl who's perma rooted in a bar in neriak, and there isn't a single thing he could do about it.

Welcome to Everquest, no warranty is expressed or implied with respect to any in-game material. You're paying to use our world now. Please insert token.
Lyndar Everdead

I'm pretty sure I know what the game designers meant.

The current devs themselves don't even know what the turtle's designers 'meant' ... your claim to any degree of certainty is, at best, misplaced.

~Firemynd

Corudoth is a quest mob that you talk to as part of a Kael quest.
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=952

It's highly unlikely any developers ever intended for him to be used in combat.

I see this kind of problem in all online games. Players will try to attack and kill anything that moves or is targetable. People just do not consider the consequences. Faction hits should come from attacking, not just killing. Quest mobs should not be targetable by combat abilities or spells unless it is meant to be.

The exploit is that a lv 1 mob can tank a raid level mob. That little turtle killed many a player that con'ed it green and attacked it based on Sony's con system. So the exploit isn't one the players are doing but a Sony exploit making a lv 1 mob that mean.

Quest mobs should not be targetable by combat abilities or spells unless it is meant to be.

I take it you have never completed the key quest to enter Veeshan's Peak. For most characters, charm is required to give the Burnished Wooden Stave to Ssolet Dnaas, who returns a piece of the Obulus medallion.

Again, we can't really make assumptions about designers' intentions when it comes to NPCs. The above is just one example of how players are often left to experiment with whatever means they have at their disposal to accomplish goals.

Using DC on old-world mobs is no different than other classes using their own abilities gained in each subsequent expansion to effectively trivialize older content. Player characters have immensely more damaging nukes than were available in any previous era, (much much) higher resists than were possible; and especially amongst meleers- much better damage mitigation, offensive discs/AAs, etc.. and ya know what? I haven't once seen 65th level wizards restricting themselves to 50th level nukes to simulate a proper challenge when they're blowing to bits a mob that was, by virtue of its level alone, originally "intended" to be highly resistant to player spells. Nor have I seen any warrior donning Kunark armor when he steps foot on Kunark lands; nor a ranger equipping a Kunark bow and restricting himself to only the number of arrows he can carry .... oh btw, how does one turn off critical hits/nukes? Just want to make sure our 'new' abilities aren't being exploited to kill a sand giant that happens to cross our path while passing through Oasis for an Ldon mission.

If designers had intended for Corudoth to only be used for a specific quest, they could have easily made him immune to attack... but they didn't. Mid-level folks have been testing their meddle against this turtle ever since he was first spotted in Iceclad. Many have shared stories of their encounters with him, to the point where an 'urban legend' quality surrounded him ... long before he was discovered to be part of a Kael quest.

Had it not been for spoiler sites, I'd wager a vast majority of players would still not know Corudoth had any purpose beyond being one oddity in a world of strange creatures that might be lurking behind any door, around any corner... or beneath a chunk of ice in the middle of the ocean.

~Firemynd

Curodoth is level 5, and has roughly 20-30,000 hitpoints .. not hundreds of thousands. I don't think anything in game should be unkillable or "noobie buffed". When Eq first came out one of the things I liked most is that you could kill anything you wanted.

I take it you have never completed the key quest to enter Veeshan's Peak.

Which is why I added, "unless it is meant to be." to the end of my statement. If a quest mob requires a certain spell to be used to complete the quest, then it should be affected by that spell or if it does need to be killed, it should be able to be killed. Allowing everything to be killed, however, is a mistake. It creates bad situations where one guild can blow the encounters for all other guilds. Which is one of the reasons I am looking at Horizons instead of EQ for the time being.

The point is I think that it's pretty obvious that Lodizal wasn't designed to be tanked by a level 5 creature.

Which is why I added, "unless it is meant to be." to the end of my statement. If a quest mob requires a certain spell to be used to complete the quest, then it should be affected by that spell or if it does need to be killed, it should be able to be killed.

The certain spell in quesion, allows you to bypass the DAYS - in some cases - of factioning in order to do turn ins.

Some mobs just don't like you, you can faction to soften their pallet for you, or you can drag a chanter along to Charm it.... both are ways of accomplishing the goal - not saying that Charm is the "intended" way, but it works just fine.

When I played my rog, I could steal from many KOS mobs that would squash me, un-agro'd. I'm sure that is not the way they "intended" it to work, but it was a class skill. Charming is no different, a class skill useable for many things, not intended.

Situations like Corudoth and Dire Charm should be examined by the developers and rectified.


lol, I would much rather have them working on the collision code, under-the-world zone in problems (or wall) and other USEFUL repairs then to spend even one second on this thought...

It's highly unlikely any developers ever intended for him to be used in combat.

Then they should have had him flagged for non-combat. Like the NPCs in PoTranq used to be. It isn't new technology. It just wasn't done. Therefore it is a viable way to kill a mob.

This discussion is lame, I know many people that can solo lodi now. The encounter is just dumbed down over levels, aa, and gear. So what... Another mob to his quest for the eyepatch is what? level 30? I could care less if they took the mob out of the game at this point, and I don't think he'd be missed at all. This expansion is what? 2 years old at least...

Then they should have had him flagged for non-combat. Like the NPCs in PoTranq used to be. It isn't new technology. It just wasn't done. Therefore it is a viable way to kill a mob.

Flagging mobs non-combat has always been a bit lame imo, it detracts from some of the realism of the world. Regardless though, I want you to go and tell me how many lvl 5 NPCs or PCs in Everquest can tank a level 55(?) creature. I'm sorry, but that just goes against every design aspect of EQ. The mob chould be flagged non-charmable.

Then they should have had him flagged for non-combat. Like the NPCs in PoTranq used to be. It isn't new technology. It just wasn't done. Therefore it is a viable way to kill a mob.


I don’t think the designers had the ability to flag a mob as non-combat until the Luclin expansion. Corudoth is a Velious era mob and back in those days everything could be attacked. I remember plenty of people being killed by shopkeepers, bankers, quest NPC’s and particularly the keymaster in PoSky.

The problem isn't that he is charmable. The problem is that he is lv 5. SoE making him level 5 is saying that a lv 5 character has an even chance of killing him. Seriously, do you thank ANY level 5 player could take him on or that a group of lv 5's would be able to easily kill him?

SoE could have easily made him lv 55 so he would not be green to everyone and could not be DC'd. He doesn't drop anything so only someone using him for exp would ever kill him. If his respawn time is more than 18 mins nobody would even kill him for exp and everyone would be happy.

don’t think the designers had the ability to flag a mob as non-combat until the Luclin expansion.

You mean they didn't think of it until then and that I realize. Not like the code is some new "state of the art" concept code.

I should try taking my rogue to Iceclad and attempt an assassination on Corudoth. How hard does the little bastage hit for? And can I outrun 'em with Run3?

does assassinate kill outright, or do 32k damage? if the former, you'd be fine. if the latter, you wouldn't kill him in one hit. that'd be hillarious to see someone assassinate a mob and it's only at half hp. /cackle

Assassinate does 32,000 damage, with a possibility of being 64,000 damage on a critical backstab. If I got really lucky, it could be a double assassinate for two 32k's and could possibly be a critical backstab in there too...

If I got super-duper-er.. really damn lucky, I could do 64,000 x 3 (192,000) points of damage with a critical hit triple backstab.

It's like russian roulette.. except 5 bullets and 1 empty slot!

*pouts and sniffles* Aw... I don't get to try and assassinate Corudoth. My subscription to EQ ran out finally and I've no plans to renew it for sometime. Maybe months... or perhaps for good this time. Going to go back and toddle around in SWG for a few months or perhaps a month while I wait for City of Heroes to come out. Might be fun to swoop around Paragon City in CoH for a few months whilst I wait for WoW or Wish or Dragon Empires.

So many choices... *shrugs* ... as long as I get as much enjoyment out of the game as I do any single player game I buy, it's money well spent. I even enjoyed Shadowbane for three months. DAoC though is the worst of my purchases. I bought it, installed it, and played for a few hours and cancelled it. Least I got it cheap and on sale.

Erm, whoops. I rambled. And Drake... more like russian roulette with a machine gun and only one blank in the entire magazine.

does assassinate kill outright, or do 32k damage? if the former, you'd be fine. if the latter, you wouldn't kill him in one hit. that'd be hillarious to see someone assassinate a mob and it's only at half hp. /cackle

i seem to remember some rogues parsing insane dps on an assling mob that has an insane amount of hp, enough so that when he was down to 10% the assasinations and finishing blow or whatever that aa is were going off like crazy and the mob still lasted long enough for both rogues to disc from 10% to death and just make the dps crazier =P

I'd be more impressed if you could assassinate an animal, period. I don't think a mob flaged as animal (charmable by druid) would also be flagged humanoid, which is required for asassinations. I could be wrong.

True. I forgot about the limitation on assassinate. Meh. Stupid me. My brain has been out in left field these past few months.

Whelp. I like how those loosers can pay attention to threads like this but totaly ignore the healing concerns and sotw (There are valid points for both). As of last patch Curodoth is flagged "This NPC cannot be charmed"

Whelp. I like how those loosers can pay attention to threads like this but totaly ignore the healing concerns and sotw

ost people can multi-task. They can breath, keep their hearts beating, regulate internal temperatures and maintain several thought threads at the same time! If they choose to maintain a thread to address dire charm, I am sure it is within their capabilities.

The loosers ... Now they are the ones who can only do one thing at the time. But they don't live very long so you don't really hear too much from them.