Changes with the February Update: Alternate Ability Grants for Gold Members and Ability Changes

Considering the way people tend to AFK for days at a time at the "buffing spot" (wherever it is on any given server), this would be meaningless. Although I do like the direction you were thinking with that question. It would be nice if /who returned something more informative than just level. Perhaps a /bio <player> command (requiring a valid player name, not a partial-match) which showed some class-indifferent (e.g., Armor-to-level metric of some sort) and class-relevant info. Some examples of class relevant info:

Cleric: total hitpoints healed, highest crit heal, alt/abj/div/etc skills.

Warrior: max crit with 1h weap, max crit with 2h weap.

things like this might enlighten people as to who are the real players and who are the ones being PL'd (and who can't really play).

I have to agree with SOE that Swarming is a bad, and unfair practice. There are just a few people who do this, and Sadly now SOE is going to make all of us suffer because a a few bad apples. I have a 92 Rogue with 5.2K AA's that I have worked long, and hard to get him there. He was just starting to be fun to play, and now he is going to be nerfed, because of a few bad apples. What a waste of time, and money. Also this granting of AA's is a total waste. All of that work for nothing. It doesn't look good folks!

Whoever came up with the ideal for the free AAs need to send me a PM. Next time I am near your town I want to take you out for a beer. This is GREAT news for me!

I haven't read through all 50 pages of this thread. How is it going to work exactly?

I see this going one of a few different ways...

-We'll get all AAs that came out with that exp up to 4 exp ago. I have some of those AAs already, so I wont get those. I don't have some, innate stats for exp, I'll get those.

-We'll be giving the amount of AAs and be able to spend them how we want. Here's 4K, go nuts.

-Those over 4K AAs already get nothing.

Now the nerfs are pretty bad. I understand why they are doing it. But I don't agree with it.

As an SK I don't swarm. It's boring, and at level 100 I don't know where do swarm that would make it worth the exp. I would much rather them just take Mortal Coil away then nerf the life taps that really does help me tank.

#1) There is no such thing as a happy player in a 15 year old game.

#2) The real solution here seams to be changing the way the server controls mob positioning. I understand a few things are hard coded into EQ ancient engine, but it seems like you guys put a lot of time into this decision, wouldn't it be wise to put more time into figuring out how to change the way the server reacts (thus reducing the overall load on them) instead of trying to force your players down a path most of them obviously do not want to go down?

#3) Nerfing Riposte lifetaps will make the SK class a mere shadow of it's former self. You will literally be taking away the only thing that makes a shadowknight worth playing at lower levels when you don't have the gear to do current content. Rangers and Rogues are hardly worth nerfing. Heck rangers where told Headshot was finally where it was suppose to be when you nerfed our ability to "swarm" and headshot on multiple mobs back in House of Thule. Now your telling us we're boned yet again because of mages? And poor rogues, a rogue that uses assassinate to grind is pretty freaking rare.

#4) Auto-Granting AA's is a great thing. I believe it will bring a lot of players back to EQ. But I can't help but see it for what it really is. A Moneygrab. Your only allowing Gold Subscribers to benefit from this? That seems a bit short sighted. It truly seems like your forcing everyone to go to Gold - at least once - in the next month - just to get any benefit at all from this. Was it really that hard to grant this benefit to Free/Silver members and NOT have it count toward the meager 250/1000 aa caps?

#5) Please don't auto-grant Tradeskill AA's. Or make a small quest - where you hail an NPC to get them auto-granted only when the Player is ready for them to be. Or have them auto-grant on every achievement for the trades. (100, 200, 300) as you never know when someone WANTS to have mastery.

#6) Please Unlock House of Thule zones. They should have been unlocked when CoTF launched but this was overlooked. Also please unlock the re-req's for House of Thule and Underfoot Raids to all over 90.

#7) There are so many people worried that Sony is going to leave us in the dark when EQ:Next launches. Sony has done almost nothing to alleviate this fear. Heck the last 3 expansions where based on the concept of Fear. And while we may have gotten to the Heart of Fear - we still haven't seen solid evidence to prove otherwise. Make me believe in you again Sony. How can you ever expect me to want to play a game (EQN) when I can't believe in the company that produces it?

There are so many more things that I believe are relevant to this conversation but those are the main points. I don't want to nit-pick.

Make us love you again Sony. Changing these skills/abilities is not the answer. The real answer would have been to introduce special zones - hosted on a special server - that allowed mages to continue to beam kite. SK's to swarm, and whoever else to do what they want. While limiting the overall-affect on the rest of the community. You could have even charged for access to this zone to support the creation of the new server.

Metrav
-Retired Ranger.

when I started playing eq in 99 one of the things that attracted me was the notion that you would never 'beat ' the game. I could look forward to hours and hour of enjoyable play time. over the years it seems that the intent of the game has shifted to get to the end as quickly as possible, new expansion equals race to max level and useful aa's and gear. then wait wait wait for next expansion. and make it so easy to max it becomes pointless.

I am curious to see the actual data and how it is acquired, i.e.

1. new or returning players give up and quit because of the 'mountain' of aa's needed to get a group.

2. more people will spend time playing if they don't have to spent time playing to play.

duhhh I have just spent the last 2 hours reading these posts instead of playing, mainly because I have had the sense of why bother to play, just wait til the patch and boom my toons will have all the aa's, hum and then what? skip the next 6 months and boom again.

oh well I have loved eq, maybe i'll adapt to these changes maybe not, but all good things come to an end. no I won't cancel my subscription, just as I haven't with all the other foolish changes over the years, but I am likely to let it lapse at renewal, reroll alts and play them from 80 to 85 shrug

one last thought, if you proceed with this how about a new server that doesn't include the auto grant aa's with free transfers for those who don't want them

Auto grant all of Combat Agility and Combat Stability through Underfoot. These are the most basic AA that everyone needs for survival, and will help new players from being somewhat a liability if they get hit.

If you need to auto grant more, throw in Planar Power.

If that is not enough, auto grant all of the General AA through Underfoot. The basics, the ones that everyone eventually gets.

Leave Archetypes and Class AA alone. This lets players tailor their characters to how they want, lets them make decisions.

To me, this is a fair compromise. Still lets players take advantage of the 0-4000 bonus AA system, still provides some assistance to players. Could even figure out how many AA CS/CA/PP is through Underfoot and adjust the 0-4000 system...maybe if those are 800 AA then new system is from 800-4800 or something.

A shame that I seriously doubt any EQ dev will read this, considering this thread has exploded to 50+ pages in just over 12 hours. And who would want to read 50 pages and pay attention to each reply...

Maybe there should be some bonus for those who have actually trained those aa's

Berrs 100 berserker

think i'll just go to work early instead of playing this morning, lol guess that really sums up my reaction to these changes

So... I take it with the AA grant you have completely given up on the early content of the game. So why not just have all new characters created lv80/85 and all those AAs and make Brell's Rest the new starting city instead of CR? Then simply tell anyone who wants to play early game to hit up a progression server. I mean if your going to do something this drastic cut the BS and do it full bore.

When frogloks were added as a playable race to appeal to the up and coming 12-year old generation, I left EQ and swore I wouldn't return until they made it free (I refused to pay to play such a ridiculously damaged version of what was once a great MMORPG). When it became free, I returned. Now, it appears (as alluded in the comment to which I'm replying) that this complex game is being simplified to allow Billyeightyearold to play alongside his dad in the endgame. Another very tragic blow to what was once a great MMORPG.

Its just like any game i choose to cheat on or use a trainer with. It is very gratifying at first, however, i completely lose interest VERY quickly and I think that a lot of people will have the same problem with Everquest if they do this.

Berrs lvl 100 berserker

I would much rather that you massively increase the rate at which AAXP is gained in the low end. I'm one of those who enjoy the "grind" and progression, and would just find it more nice if I could gain, for example, the first 1000 AA in an evening and spend them more legitimately.

Currently it is a huge drag to grind AA from level 51 to around the time (85+) where you can begin on HoT missions and get some nice chunks of AA from quests.

Do the game mechanics work like that?

Developers and SOE TEAM:

First and foremost thank you for taking the time to sit down and collective address this issue in a team approach.

YOU HIT the head right on the nail with alot of these things. As an old AOE BARD, I was disapointed when they nerfed our running AOE ( despite the VERY high risk involved ). Then I became jealous and disrespected when 5 or 6 others classes were allowed to swarm but not us. I agree with the changes made regarding the zone swarming taking place.

AA Auto granted? YUK!
#1. if you give me a ton of AA, then that means the ones I REALLY NEED are gonna take forever to acquire.
#1A if I have to acquire a ton of mobs for that hellashishly slow 3.5kAAs+, then we are really just feeding the monster and encouraging more swarming

#2. Who really uses the crap AA under General anyways? Most of that innate stuff is inapplicable.

#3. As bard... I personally dont care much at all about PET AAs, INNATE RUN crap, GROUP RUN crap. So why give it to me anyways? Your going to take away from some of the Specialization that made our characters unique

SUGGESTION: I saw another poster, post a suggestion about increasing the AAXP bonus if you have under 3kAA ( or some similar figure ). I think you could achieve the same goal here, but at the same time allow to specialize. You also do not get the negative attribute of making our future AAs super slow because we get Auto populated AA grants.

Thanks for hearing us out,

Tigertone Swarmsazone <-------------- that tells u how old my character is
91 Bard
Cazic Thule / Fennin Ro

2 questions btw, i read somewhere in this thread that some proposed "titles" depending on how many AA you got at launch of the autogranted AA.
1) can this be % based and not on AA number based ( not all classes have same AA count)
2) can decapitation go in mele dmg and not in spell dmg ? ( assassinate and HS are mele hit, so do decapitation need to be).
Thanks for read me

After sleeping on this I have realized a secondary concern that I hope can be addressed. For those that group with a set group of friends to do progression tasks (we're working on the J2 thru J5 mercenary lines in SoD at the moment) - without a way to offset exp gain for heavier players by shunting exp to AA, this will induce a growing level disparity between heavy and light players.

The auto-grant of AA seems like it will have an intended or unintended result of compressing the player base into the level 85-100 range. It will do this because there will be no way to offset exp gain other than to just level more.

Would it be feasible to significantly increase the default AA bank sizes to at least cover a week's worth of heavy play? I'm thinking from 30 to at least 150-250... and even then I don't know if even that is enough.

A few thoughts and ideas -

1. The change to target limit on beams is what fixed the issue for wizards back during TSS. Why this wasn't done for mages back then too is beyond me. Now that you are imposing a target limit on mage beams you should be able to monitor the impact this has on CPU usage. If additional limits are needed after that then address them then.

2. The proposed changes to SK and clerics will interfere with their core abilities and should be rethought. Suggestions have been given in this thread by those classes and should be considered before any change.

3. Ranger/rogue/zerker stuff is not my forte. Ranger and rogue abilities already seem limited, and zerkers less so. But when it comes to CPU usage, I don't see these as being the main culprits.

AA Stuff

I have seen many posts about silent casting. For wizards this needs to remain passive. For other classes perhaps not so much. Making it a toggle ability for some classes makes sense, but not for wizards. If you do make it a toggle, then make it a long lasting buff.

The auto grant seems a bit too extreme. People need to feel like they earned something. Its what keeps many of them logging in. I also understand that it can be daunting to newer players trying to catch up so here are a few thoughts and ideas:


1. Increase the bonus exp on AA's from the current 4000 to say 6000 or 7000.


2. Starting at say level 10, auto grant 1 point of all the innate resists, str/dex/intel etc. There are 15 levels on most of those. So by the time a character has reached level 25 they have those maxed. (during early levels is when people would get the most benefit from these).


3. Make individual solo tasks more rewarding for experience. (NOT shared tasks because we don't want to see a return to people selling taskadds as they sit in the lobby). I was doing some tasks in Bloody Kith a few months back on a level 86 toon and after completing 5 individual tasks the experience bar "might" have moved 1%.


4. Reduce the replay timers on Franklin Teek AND the npc in Dragonscale Hills (the one in the tower) from 18 hours down to maybe 4 or 6 hours. This may cause additional bottlenecks on Teeks' tasks with too many people trying to kill a very limited type of certain mobs.


5. Increase and/or add more experience for completing achievements. The ones from RoF and after are fine but you recently added some other expansions that have yet to be filled with achievements. Spend the time and make all those achievements (partisan, mercenary, hunter etc) for all those older expansions and give them decent exp rewards. This alone will help newer people to catch up while also encouraging them to visit all the content EQ has to offer.

I've been a player of EQ for a long time, since late 1999 / early 2000. I've had upwards of a dozen paid accounts for long periods of time. I've been a guild leader for family guilds to server first guilds. I've experienced this game on every level from casual to hardcore. I've attended SOE Live religiously, won the competitions, and enjoyed the variety of content there. I keep low level / low AA characters to log in and try the group game for casuals out and enjoy passing on knowledge. To say I've been a long time fan of the original EQ Franchise would be an understatement. I just don't see the intelligence in some of these changes, and it's making me both reconsider my main class or if I even want to play at all. I've met Piestro in person multiple times and chatted with devs more than once. I'm not going to claim they don't care for the game, I know the opposite is quite true. I know, at least in person, they listen and take feedback very seriously. I don't spend much time at all here on these forums, but I felt the need to at least comment.

There's essentially two topics here, I'll address them individually.

1. Class Nerfs to address issues created by swarming.

My main is an SK and I have swarmed in the past, but I find it a droll and boring endeavor. I have done it probably less than one dozen instances of it. Any reduction to lifetaps however is a huge reduction to our tanking ability. I basically only play the game to raid, and I parse every raid. I die regularly on raids when I feel I shouldn't. On offtanking farm targets, I can easily be the top person on my healing chart, a large portion of this healing comes from epic 2.0 (Lich Sting) lifetap on hit/riposte damage. Without my lifetaps, I am nothing. I don't outtank a paladin or a warrior. I get far more healing on melee damage lifetaps than i do spell casted lifetaps. One person said it best: "Mortal Coil is what enables our swarming." Remove it, I'll be fine without it. It very rarely helps in the group game and almost never helps the raid game. Removing it will hurt the solo game, but maybe you should bring back single target fear kiting. Don't change the nature of melee lifetaps; it will hurt everything an SK does.

The various forms of kiting are fun for folks, I find it sad they have to be nerfed because the software/hardware can't handle it. I am a systems administrator by trade, so I do have some sympathy for the effects of users on your hard work. I read quite a few good comments on better ways to address each class. I do hope you take those in to account.

2. AA Grants to speed up new players / return players

I echo the concerns for new players being giving things with no effort.

The thing I find most sad about your proposed solution to this change is that you have a perfect opportunity to provide content and reason to play the game, and instead you are taking away the need. I hate the grind more than any person out there. But I earned it. I don't mind if it's easier to earn it, but it needs to be earned.

How about any of these ideas:

• Fast AA gain innate buff when certain conditions met, kind of like Lesson of the Devoted
• EXP Goes to both regular and AA starting at 51 until a target percentage/number of total AAs is reached for that level; after which, normal exp aa split rules apply
• CONTENT IDEA: new quests with large AA rewards. Long like epic weapon quests perhaps, level appropriate, single time quests with large AA Grants. Example: at level 51, get a special Heroic Adventure, maybe it takes a fellowship of people to do (two groups) and several nights worth of time but grants 500 AA to spend at the end.
• CONTENT IDEA: achievements that relate to AAs autogrant further ranks of AAs. Working up alcohol tolerance grants brewing tradeskill aas. Working up melee skills grants innate/planar strength AAs. Etc. This allows players to choose to a way to get extra AAs quickly
• Ideas Jezu posted before me were also great. Check those out, one post up.

I'm sure more creative types can come up with better content ideas, but the point is there is CONTENT to consume that will have meaningful rewards to players AND address the issue you're looking to address.

Players need to earn these AA, they need to spend time with each power boost and understand what new opportunities have been made for their class. By all means, PLEASE reduce the grind time, but do it through new content and exp increases, not for free.

Don't stop there, give max level players something too! You already mentioned wanting to bring content more often. How about a new monthly quest that has a large AA reward or meaningful alternative reward (gear / fun illusion / your name in the credits / whatever) for max level players.

Lastly on the AA topic, auto granting AAs and not allowing players choice is kind of lame. I will receive almost nothing from your proposed changes, I'd rather be able to put that progression towards things that will actively help my character. Thus the emphasis by a lot of people here on wanting to have AAs to spend, not auto granted abilities. I don't have the playerbase statistics you do (though I would LOVE to, I find that sort of thing fascinating) but I'm curious how many active players you're excluding from receiving no or little tangible benefit from your AA generosity and how many folks you are likely harming due to granting irrelevant AAs and eliminating their ability to earn AAs as quickly.


Most people play EQ because of the people, and because they feel like there's still a challenge and that things have to be earned. Every time you dumb the game down, I watch as the game loses players. It's already a losing battle trying to keep raids full every night, even though we're slowly but steadily progressing through content. The high end guilds are finishing content within a week or two of release and having it farmed out well before new content. That will always happen, but we want things to do, we want more game to play. Stop taking it away. Reduce the grind and speed up catch up times, I'm all for it. But let folks PLAY the game to do so.

Just a few thoughts.. sorry if its a huge repeat.

1. Beaming. thank you for the delayed and needed fix.

2. Look harder at the numbers to other nerfs. All I ask is double check the math. nerf what is needed for the server. once that special number is found. limit to that. Not a fix all.. but revist it as needed.

3. AAxp giveaway. I feel there is better ways to that. Perhaps drafting a line of sub quests into one larger quest line the just rewards that aaxp. Non killing so those that cant kill can still do the quest. Something trailor to each class.. so player learn the basic stuff. Modern learning quest. A TOGGLE option to opt in or out.Player want the freebee.. must do the quest line. If they want bypass it %mod to aaxp. Attempt to reward Class knowledge learning to improve overall gameplay for all.

4. Happy the Dev team posted the planned info. As reading player base posts perhaps may lead to something that is possibly overlooked. We have all invested something into this game and wish to continue to invest into this game we enjoy. Thank you for your effort and sharing, as well as listening to ours.

Longtime vet player here. Overall I think these changes make sense with one very big *****asterisk*****

You ABSOLUTELY MUST make this auto-AA granting optional. MUST MUST MUST. As many other posters have said, there are endless days of enjoyment to be spent on those low level alts just goofing around in old zones. I think the best suggested method of implementing this would be the /claim item for each expansion that one poster suggested earlier. When you ding 51 you can /claim the old world general AA's item. When you ding 55 you can /claim the old world archetype AA's item, and so on through each appropriate tier of AA's. This also allows more customization! Maybe a player wants all the 51-55 AA auto granted, but wants to grind after that, etc.

Thanks for listening.