EverQuest Legends Has a Lot More Up Its Sleeve: Inside the Latest Developer Roundtable
August 22, 2026 - The EverQuest Legends team talks Kunark, Velious, class balance, pets, motes, new content, future systems, bugs, and why the team is willing to keep changing the game. After a small Hiatus, The Dev’s at Game Jawn were back with another Dev stream this week. This time they moved it to Saturday and brought a massive eight people to the virtual table to discuss the state of the game, what is coming next and answer a metric ton of the community’s most burning questions.
From Kunark to Velious, Class balance to pets, motes and future systems, new content and bugs, and the reasoning why the team is willing to keep changing the game all passed the review in this massive 2 hour session. There is a lot to go through, and I highly recommend anyone to go listen to the whole thing on the official EverQuest Legends Twitch VOD page or their YouTube channel. For those that rather read the highlights, let’s dig into it.
“It gets weird.” — Kire
State of the Game: Patch Cadence, Roadmap, and Live Service Reality
Hosted by Seitoko and everyone’s favorite community dwarf, Brasse, the discussion brought together several members of the EverQuest Legends development team, including Senior Programmer Rogean, CEO/Technical Director Secrets, Executive Producer Dave Youssefi "Embrwo/Sisyphus," Lead Content Designer Kire, Lead Technical Designer Alia, and Technical Artist Moth.
Rogean opened the roundtable by acknowledging the post-launch grind, weeks of getting critical issues addressed and systems stabilized, and he signaled that the team is now turning its attention forward.The team had originally planned biweekly patch cadence for updates but quickly discovered there's simply too much being built to hold things for two weeks at a time. Weekly patches are back. As a result, players can expect some weeks to carry heavier changes and others to be lighter maintenance updates, but for now the cadence is weekly for the foreseeable future.
Brasse asked whether the Comic-Con roadmap is still on track. Secrets confirmed that yes, everything on it is still on schedule and surprisingly some items are closer to completion than the community might expect. However, the team is keeping details close to the chest until things are further along, but Secrets noted that as soon as next week some previously discussed features (not necessarily full roadmap items) may start hitting the test servers or the live game.
Secrets had further big news to share that non-respawning instance rewards are one of these near-term items. Once implemented, completing a non-respawning instance will grant rewards and will return your instance charge immediately. Kire agreed vehemently confirming the charge return as a big deal. The reward details themselves are still being polished, and this is the reason why it hasn't shipped just yet. It is close however as according to the team you should expect this to land in this week’s patch or the next.
Of course, these are not the only features to come, many of them are still in development. The alias system, housing, the auction house, and in-game achievement methods, are all still being built. There are no specific timelines, but all are being actively worked on.
“Everything is always constantly being iterated on, being discussed, being changed.” — Rogean
The Ongoing Philosophy: Solo vs. Group vs. Raid Balance Discussion
The roundtable's first real meaty topic was a philosophy question. “How do you keep a game designed for solo casual players while still making grouping and raiding feel meaningful?” One big community concern, about power gamers drowning out casual feedback, was brought to the table by Brasse. Dave addressed this directly and he was unambiguous about the direction of EQL. This is a casual solo game, full stop. No one should expect EQL to pivot into a traditional raid-mandatory MMO. The Group XP changes made recently were a direct response to both internal discussion and community feedback, and the team will keep adjusting, but the identity of EQL as a solo-friendly game is non-negotiable as it is the core identity of the game.
Rogean added that the game's ongoing dungeon revamp work, which is still actively happening at mid-level tiers, is itself evidence that the team is investing in the casual and mid-game experience and not just chasing end-game players. Alia summarized what's internally the most-discussed topic. The balance between solo viability and group fun and Moth noted there are 560 unique class trio combinations, which means balance is perpetual and will never be fully "done". In the end the game believed in its mantra of “play it your way”, and the goal is that every trio can at least clear content, but this also does not mean that every trio is equally optimal. The team believes in its core philosophy and every member works towards that common goal.
“Making content that nobody finds is not a good use of development resources.” — Ailia
Diving into the details
There were many community questions for the team, both in discord as well as in the stream chat, and Brasse worked hard to bring up as many of them to the team. To keep things somewhat organized she tried to group them into mini categories. I will try to do the same in the rest of the article as we go over all the information that was shared.
Charm: Getting Fixed the Right Way
There were questions on Charm, and this prompted Alia to declare this “the other most discussed topic" internally (Murder Bee was briefly acknowledged as a third). The community has flagged that charm particularly in Hate, Fear, and Sky seem to be performing significantly above its intended power level. The team was asked how this would be addressed and balanced. It became clear that the team's approach is deliberately not a sweeping charm nerf and instead they plan to take on these challenges in a more organized manner as there are more things going on with charm that need addressing.
They mentioned four things specifically. Specific mobs in end-game zones that are performing absurdly when charmed are being individually addressed Normal pets are being buffed up substantially to close the gap the goal is to make a well-geared, spell-upgraded, pet-gear-equipped summoned pet a genuinely competitive choice compared to a charmed mob. The level scaling interaction between charm and mob strength is also being adjusted. The risk/reward relationship of charm is being tuned so that the charm duration uncertainty remains a real factor in players decisions on how to proceed. Secrets specifically pointed out that players should be able to look at a fight and rationally decide "I'm going to use my summoned pet here rather than charm" and feel good about that decision. Charm remaining a viable and powerful strategy is fine but charm being the only reasonable strategy is not.
Pet Weapon Scaling: Full System Overhaul
The current state of how pets scale with weapons is, in Alia's words, "as much of a mess as you guys are seeing it." After internal discussion over the last few days, the team made the call to change the system entirely. As a main rule, any weapon you give a pet will always be an upgrade over not giving them a weapon. There should be no more scenarios where a weapon you hand to a pet simply does nothing or results in a DPS loss. The better the weapon, the more improvement you get, but at bare minimum Any weapon is always better than fists.
Class Balance Highlights
There were plenty of class questions, as each class currently has something that people look to see changed, removed or improved. The team patiently addressed each question as they passed the revue.
Rogues: Backstab damage scaling with Mote item upgrades is confirmed coming, the decision has been made, and implementation is targeted for roughly the next month. Rogue poison discipline Mote scaling is a longer-term consideration as it is technically more complex. Despite all this, it is on the radar and is being discussed internally. Rogue poisons working with ranged weapons is the intended behavior and will be fixed once the remaining bugs are cleared. Lastly, Melee skill caps and poison scaling more broadly are acknowledged as needing attention, however there is no single silver bullet to address it, so it will take some more time.
Berserkers: Berserker players had concerns about some of their key skills and how they were operating. Alia addressed that Rampage is largely doing what the team wants, though damage is slightly lower than desired and will receive some future adjustments.
Burst of Power "slipped by the wayside" per Alia's own admission promising to give it a proper look and equally Frenzy is due for another review pass as well. Bloodrune visibility is coming as well. One of the options considered is a rune overlay next to the health bar that shows exactly how much rune you have at any given moment, providing both player clarity and real-time diagnostic data for the team
Bards: The looping cast animation bug for Singing Mastery AA is confirmed as the next task for the developer currently wrapping up the spell stacking fix, so until then be careful with it.
Melee (general): The melee class, low-level endurance consumption for melee will be adjusted and is pending change. Do not expect it to be ready for the next update but likely the following week. It was also acknowledged that low-end scaling was disadvantaging melee more than intended at lower levels.
Beastlords: The Beast Lord warder's casting AI and spell priority list are under review as it's currently making questionable decisions, like spamming low-level DoTs instead of its ice nukes which is not optimal to say the least. To further help the class, focus effects specific to Beastlord summoning are coming in future, but mainly in zones where they are thematically fit such as in Mist Moore. Something interesting is planned for the Beastlord/warder synergy. It is not not Frenzy of Spirit specifically, but a new ability that represents the connection between the Beastlord and their companion. Stay tuned. Thanks to chat input, buffing Frenzy of Spirit to affect both player and pet (at AA cost) is now on the ideas list
Charm pets vs. summoned pets: Addressed above in the charm section, normal pets getting significant buffs is the primary mechanism for rebalancing this.
Pet AAs: Pet accuracy is being treated as a systemic bug to be fixed directly, not patched over with an AA bandage. Pet damage AAs won't directly push the damage number up. Instead DPS improvements will come through systemic fixes.
DoT removing buffs: A fix is in QA and targeting the test server soon. This is a large systems-level change affecting many interactions across the game, including Ranger's Force of Nature, which is currently unusable because of this bug.
Spell Systems, Gear Updates and Loadouts
Are you still with me? I told you there is a lot of information to share. Believe me, I had to dig through it all. Take a drink and let’s move on to spells, spell systems, gear and other related information that was addressed.
Alia confirmed a rough design for a third pass on the spell upgrade system exists. It will touch effect categories not currently covered such as damage shields, resists, haste/slow, and as Alia put it "some stuff I don't think anyone has even suggested yet." There is no specific timeline for all this, and it comes at some point after other critical systems are completed first. Region songs and buff spells are not currently slated for spell upgrade scaling, and more spell slots are not planned at this time.
“We love this game and we feel some of the pain that you do. So just know that we’re listening.” — Secrets
Paraphrasing Chief Martin Brody.. "You're gonna need a bigger bag", Many gatherers were looking for more storage space and right out of the gate the team had some welcome news, and that is the availability of 50-Slot Bank Bags, confirmed passing QA and landing in Tuesday's patch. Please be aware that these bags can be held in bank slots only, they will not work in your inventory. Either way, hoarders rejoice.
Loadout System Updates
As with everything else in the game, the team is also bringing changes to the loadout system, Improving quality of life and functionally for the game. We will soon see the option for gender choice per loadout, it is built and in QA and targeted to release approximately two weeks out. The promised alias system however, is still in development. Once completed this will address the name per loadout request allowing to have the appropriate name for the different gender and race options you can unlock in the game. As I always say, Plonk is perhaps a fun Ogre name, but less so for a regal high elf.
A big source of contention when the game came out of beta was the big drop in available loadout slots for players. The team compromised to give players 3 of them, with the promise of unlocking more in game, outside of the cash shop. The community asked about those promised in-game unlocks and we were told those new methods will be arriving in the next couple of weeks.
Lastly Rogean briefly teased a "cool feature coming in the future" that will allow players to alter appearances in ways he wasn't ready to detail. So consider this item filed for later.
The deal with Motes
Motes are a key piece in upgrading items and spells and have become a commodity for players. Though it was answered in one of the previous Dev streams, there seemed to still be some confusion on the mote drop rate and so Ailia clarified Mote drop rates comprehensively once more. There are several multipliers that apply to Mote drop chance, they are the following:
- Number of classes the mob you are killing has, is a multiplier to your drop chance
- If the mob is a rare or unique spawn it doubles Mote drop chance
- If the Mob is a raid target, then it triples Mote drop chance
- All multipliers stack with each other
The theoretical maximum achievable drop chance is at or just above 100%, meaning a guaranteed Mote, when all conditions align. Named mob density is the key variable to optimize if you're farming Motes per hour. Seitoko also noted that the "rare creature" tag is being actively applied to creatures during zone updates so that more named mobs are properly flagged and receive the multipliers.
There is a useful update incoming, the tooltip. When you slot Motes into a spell, a the tooltip will update in real time to show exactly what your spell will look like at that upgrade level. This is currently in QA so you should expect it fairly soon.
As for the upcoming Kunark expansion, existing Motes will work there, however, pushing gear and spells beyond the current cap ceiling will require new Mote types that are expected to drop as we enter the Kunark era.
Zones: What's Coming
Plane of Sky: Targeted Class Loot System
The team at Game Jawn addressed complaints about Plane of Sky and acknowledged that the loot pool for this zone is as a problem. With single drops per run across a huge loot table means players are doing 100+ runs to target specific items if luck doesn't cooperate.
The fix that is being implemented will dramatically change how this will work in the future. When you kill a Sky boss there will be an additional chance to receive a piece of loot specifically for one of your three active classes, pulled from that boss's existing loot table. This is considered extra loot that does not replace the standard drop. This method allows players to specifically target farm pieces for their active class setup.
In addition, and this will be for all zones, raid boss HP scaling for small groups (two or three players) will be massively adjusted in an upcoming change. As it stands, the current experience of hitting a massive HP sponge as a duo or trio not all that fun and therefore it is being addressed.
“There has been a lot of love put into these zones... and there’s a lot of love from every part of this team that’s going into these zones, that’s going into the content, that’s going into the game design and balance.” — Secrets
D5+ Difficulty: It Exists and Has Been Play tested
Some of you wild ones asked for it, and Alia confirmed it, sort of. D5+ difficulty has been already developed and tested internally. According to the team it is in their words "different" and "kind of unfair" but based on feedback, that is probably what players asking for it want it to be. Kire mentioned it being nightmare inducing, so time will tell if it will be offered to the public and how fast they can master it. For now there is no release date on the near horizon, but it is actively being worked on.
Most of the other zones also received a mention through the stream and I collected them below for a quick overview of what is, or might be coming next to your favorite zone.
Estate of Unrest: This will be the next dungeon revamp. It is currently in active development by Seitoko. And based on a player question, a possible minor illusion proc item hidden in the zone was teased as a possibility by Secrets, who suggested it fit the cursed theme.
Rujarkian Hills: This zone is confirmed as a level 40–50 zone (you can sneak in at 35, "good luck") and will be an outdoor zone, as they said on the stream "you're going to be in the hills, not going into them." There was also a hint that it may have end-game content alongside leveling content.
Permafrost: The zone that has long been promised to get an overhaul was mentioned again. There is high love for this zone and with it a high priority for the team. However, the plan for it is to be redesigned as an end-game alternative to Sol B, comparable in scope and scale. And with bigger plans and scope, comes more time needed to develop it. Stay tuned, the changes will be coming.
Nektropos Castle: This zone was announced not too long ago and in one of the older streams you can see a sneak peak of the new areas in this zone. There was not much more to tell us at this time and the level range deliberately not revealed. As per Kire: "Give it a little bit, you'll find out."
Overworld zones: In general, the team acknowledged the overworld areas as underrepresented currently. The did refer back to the previous mentioned Rujarkian Hills as a step toward restoring open-world content. Karanas and other classic outdoor zones were mentioned by the community as desired and the team affirmed this is the direction but gave no hard commitment on any changes anytime soon.
Necropolis Castle and Disarm/Sense Trap: The long-useless Disarm Trap and Sense Trap skills may finally get a purpose soon. Kire and Moth both strongly implied that castles in upcoming content might just make use of trap mechanics. "Castles are notoriously trappy."
Mayong Mistmoore: Dave noticed that people had not seen Mayong Mistmoore anywhere yet and he teased the lore with a comment. "There's a reason Mayong isn't in his castle. Don't you worry." Kire added: "He's got places to be and things to do. Probably even people to kill." What can this mystery mean? Let’s hope we will find out soon, Afterall we are moving towards Halloween, Game Jawn if you are reading this.. you know what to do.
As for starting cities and the new player experience, the team is committed to revisiting starting city content over time. Kerra Isle's quest series was cited as an example of the quality level they want to bring to other places but it won't all happen at once. One thing was clear, it is all part of the long-term plan.
Kunark and the Future: Kunark was mentioned quite a few times throughout the talk, and it seems especially Kire has a soft spot for it. He spoke with genuine enthusiasm about working on Kunark lore specifically. They are laying the groundwork for some fun content and pointed out that while EQL is in the same universe as EQ1 and EQ2, it will have its own timeline and its own lore and as such, Kunark in EQL will not be a carbon copy of EQ1 Kunark. Yes, there will be familiar faces, and familiar zones but also new faces, displaced timelines, and things that "get weird".
In more practical terms, additional AAs are coming with Kunark. The 50 AA bank cap is somewhat intentional, but the team acknowledged players hitting it and has early ideas for additional AA sinks. This is something they'll discuss when designs are more concrete.
Velious will follow Kunark in some form and it too, will also diverge from the EQ1 version. As for more future content, EQL is not planning to follow the EQ1 expansion sequence exactly and instead it will forge its own path. What this will bring remains to be seen.
A raid project and a second secret thing: Seitoko accidentally teased two separate unannounced collaborative projects they've been working on with Secrets and Kire. One is raid content. The other is unspecified. Both are being actively developed. This prompted several minutes of other developers telling each other to stop talking about it and laughing about the unintended leak.
“I’ve played this game... off and on since I was ten years old. So to actually get to make my own little mark on it is insane.” — Kire
Q&A Rapid Fire
There were many great questions throughout the whole session and though I have addressed so many already, it is almost impossible to not accidentally skip a few or to repeat myself. However in order to give as much information as possible I will throw out a bunch of them in this rapid fire section, in an effort to bring you all the goods.
Manastone / Hellstone / Vigor Stone: Were implemented, pulled due to an exploit. Coming back when the exploit is fixed. The circulating quote about them was from closed beta Discord. not everything from beta made it to live.
Ogre and Halfling unlock paths: Still painful. A small update was pushed to the test server for Halflings. Both are being actively refined to find a path that's fair without being a giveaway.
PayPal / payment options: Dave confirmed he's actively pushing the internal platform team to get PayPal integrated. PaySafe is also in scope. It is in process but he can't put a date on it.
New classes: Technically possible. It is not realistic to happen for Kunark. Long-term, the team expects they would add new classes as Rogean said he "would not rule it out for the longer-term vision of the game, in fact I'm sure we would."
Pet naming: Planned to be added to the game, as with many things there is no confirmed timeline due to current workload. Will be subject to naming guidelines.
Exultation system pass: Non-proc exaltations are being considered for a future pass. Class pairing restrictions on exaltations exist to account for specific Kunark items The example given is the ranger only dagger that fires a wizard nuke multiple times per minute. Opening that to other classes without safeguards would be a balance disaster.
Spell vendors on Faydwer (Shaman and Beastlord): A known pain point being looked at. Secrets hinted Beastlords and shamans may find some commonalities amongst them (shamanistic beast lords) Not sure what that all means. New Sebilis was noted as a concession for Iksar given how difficult it is for them to access other vendors.
Invite button in friends window: Rogean confirmed it should be doable and added it to the backlog as a good idea for future implementation.
Third instance charge: For the team, the non-respawning instance charge refund on completion is the answer to this. Players doing efficient full clears will essentially get continuous access.
Zone revamp road map: There was hesitation to give a full ordered list since multiple designers are working in parallel and the order depends on who finishes first. Estate of Unrest is next. Several others are in progress simultaneously but not confirmed in order.
Tracking skill: Improvements are coming tied to an unannounced upcoming feature. A text search bar for the tracking window was flagged as a good suggestion and added to the consideration list. Seitoko also demonstrated a lesser-known feature live on stream where clicking an NPC in the track window highlights them on the map.
Achievements with out-of-era zones: Community was asked to post in a new "out of era" bug report thread in Discord so the team can find and fix them all.
Events and holidays: Plans are in motion for Labor Day , it will not necessarily be a traditional event but "certain things will be going on." For future Holiday and classic EQ-themed events, plans are going forward. But it was well iterated that critically: no FOMO as events will not gate permanent character progression.
Team expansion: On the question if Game Jawn was going to expand and hire more team members, Dave confirmed yes that the team will grow. Planning is underway.
Final Thoughts
This was a remarkable stream for the depth of developer transparency on display. This week’s stream was not simply a case of, "Here are next week's patch notes. The developers talked about class balance, pets, charm, spell upgrades, motes, Plane of Sky, small-group raids, dungeon design, quest philosophy, environmental storytelling, Kunark, Velious, future races and classes, loadouts, character customization, open-world content and even some things they probably wish they had not teased quite so much. Alia's willingness to say "Burst of Power slipped past me, that's on me" and Seitoko's half-accidental teasing of two unannounced projects were genuinely charming moments in a long Q&A. The themes that kept surfacing across every topic were the same ones the team has maintained since before launch: this is a casual game first, balance will always be iterative, and the team is listening more than it's publicly responding.
The game is live, Kunark is on track, pets are getting a major overhaul, and at least two things the community doesn't know about yet are being built. That's a good place to be, a month post-launch.
DadGeek (Rob) is the co-founder of GeeksVsGeeks. He is a product of the eighties and never let go of his geek interest and hobbies no matter how often someone told him to stop. His love for gaming and all things geek has been part of his parenting style and permeates throughout the whole family. A family of Geeks vs Geeks
