Partial Repair

Every now and then the EverQuest II game designers will come up with a completely unconventional idea for an item effect, such as the interactive money sink buff on The Price Paid charm. It took us a few tries here at Darq Side HQ to streamline routine interactions with that item, but the result is reasonably elegant, scalable and future-proof.

Darq Side member Vlkodlak recently pointed out another unique item in the form of the Unstable Void Crystal. This one is an achievement reward from the Fabled Kurn's Tower zones, and it presents a somewhat different UI challenge. Its buff causes the wearer's abilities to gain effectiveness as the repair level of the item goes down.

Naturally the wearer will want to repair all damaged gear except this charm. By default there are only two ways at a mender or bot to accomplish such a feat: Repair each gear piece individually, skipping over the charm; or move the charm out of inventory entirely, repair all, then pull the item back out of the bank and re-equip.

Both of these solutions are clunky, and if the repairs are being done mid-combat using a repair bot it's particularly awkward. So with Vlkodlak's input and testing we've come up with a clever custom solution. Initially a 21-step macro was built to repair specific gear pieces, ignoring the charm. That worked but it's a pain to set up, and what happens when you want to exclude a different gear slot, or repair a different combination of pieces? Not very friendly or portable.

So we settled on this more graphical solution, which is future-proof for when the game designers add a disrepair buff to other gear pieces.

At a mender or bot you'll see a new button: Partial Repair. Click that and you'll get a gear slot arrangement similar to the Equipment page in the Character window. If you don't change anything, all repairable slots are enabled. So if you click Partial Repair now, those 22 pieces will get repaired. (Note that the default "Repair All" repairs everything you're wearing plus everything in your bags. But the custom Partial Repair only targets what you are currently wearing.)

To repair everything except the charm in question, disable the correct slot (left or right side), optionally save your choices for next time, and hit the Partial Repair button. Easy!

Admittedly this is a very targeted solution right now, but Vlkodlak and I are both convinced that the designers will drop this buff, or something similar, onto more special pieces in the future. And when they do, you'll be ready!