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

Any room for a change on this auto grant AAs ? Why not give people the AAs to spend how they want ?

Thanks Tarrin, That was to show you what considerations we took before we made our proposed changes. We're trying to be more transparent on how we came to these decisions.

I would also like to suggest either the cost of those aa's be largely reduced, or give a bulk of AA to spend how the user sees fit instead of auto granting.

I'm thinking of not just combat aa, but tradeskill ones will be impacted as well. For example, waiting to purchase the reduction in failure rate AA's to get the most use out of your craftsman potion. I'd rather buy those AA after I've maxed out my tradeskill than before so I'm not burning through components much faster. If those are auto granted to me, then I don't have a choice.

You only need to be gold membership for one month to earn 4000AAs.It's absolute unfair.

I think these are great changes. I don't see anything wrong with giving people a solid base of AAs when earning AAs is really a joke and we really need a stronger more coherent base of players to design content for so the devs can make better content without having to spread a lot of effort out to levels that most people are frankly dodging at this point - it'll make for a better community imo.

The swarming changes are on the money - and it's about time. I never understood how a blind eye could be turned to something that made experience completely trivial and relied on an overload of server resources to carry out.

If there's 2 classes that really needed to be nerfed, it was Warriors, with NTTB, and Clerics, with Shining Bastion. Well done Sony.

Just to clarify-should I not bother spending aa's in anything pre-underfoot before this change goes live? I recently just came back to the game and am kind of starting from scratch on a new server, so I am leveling up 2 characters I've been boxing-will the aa's ive already earned and spent be "unspent"? or does it just mean that if I ever stop being gold, I will be able to keep those aa's I earned? I know im only talking about a couple hundred aa's so far, but it seems like id be spinning my wheels to grind the aa's pre underfoot, only to get them all by the end of the month anyway, hehe.

If you are giving all these AA's away for the gold membership. What about the gold membership players that have been earning AA's since level 51. Now you are just giving those AA's away to gold members and are you going to compensate those players that have earned every AA for their level. I mean I could have been leveling my character instead of working AA's if you are giving them away. I have already have about 40 AA's that showed as spent and not a sign from when you combined AA groups. So that is 40 AA"s that I have wasted my time to earn and have nothing to show for it. I have several characters that this has happened to.

I do understand most all that you have mentioned are needed for the health of the servers...My only question is this... why the Rogue class? Do you really see a lot of rogues in general chat offering pling? Don't think so... yes I have a lvl 99 rogue that can tank some zones but only for my alts... and only lower zones... The rogue always gets the raw end of the stick. I realize that the rogue 1.0 epic is prolly one of easiest to accomplish... but then you made the 1.5 so hard it took me 5 months to do... Ok i lived with that... and did it and went on to the 2.0... seemed like cake walk after the 1.5 lol. But as swarming... beaming or mass killings go... and offerings of pling.. (at least on my play server) doesn't come from Rogues. They mostly come from High level mages or High lvl Zerkers or Rangers. So... please leave the rogue alone for once... we are a humble class as it is... we have been put in our place... mostly on the backside and looking at arses in Norrath.

Bomana
Annihilator Rogue Fennin Ro

I'm not sure that is the case on the Level 100 scenario. I'll bring that up for discussion here. The goal with this change is to get everyone over the barrier that exists when coming back to the game. I'll bring up your scenario though.
Also, we may need to look at some AAs that people feel are detrimental to their character and do not want.

Boom! Mages, Rangers, Berserkers, Rogues, and ShadowKnights all at once. I don't need to make a fancy chart to show you what's going to happen to player enjoyment and customer satisfaction. We step outside the Dev "Intended" box, we get slapped down.
A good portion of the fun of EQ has always been doing the unintended, the dangerous, the exciting, the unknown. Those always seem to be the exact things taken away from us. If I wanted to be forced to play a certain way there are plenty of other games out there that keep you on the straight and narrow.
Guess I'll go play my necro. They would never get nerfed...
All the lists of justifications you can throw out there will never make "no fun" = "fun"
But at least you took away AAing and added all the desirable gear to CotF merchants so I have no reason to do any content.
I guess I can thank you for breaking my addiction.
GJ

Overall I'm in favour of these changes.

I'm a bit disappointed though that riposted procs *on your current target* will also no longer count. They form a significant portion of solo XP for rogues (and it's not as if we're any good at solo via any other route), and don't explicity come from swarm kiting.

Similarly some of the procced heals for knights when tanking will no longer fire. Obviously their own attacks can proc still. Anyone know when 1-on-1 how many procs they get from riposts vs attacks?

Two questions really. The first is will the proc actually kill the mob in one shot? Currently that is not the case unless the headshot itself is modded. I want to say 240k is the baseline hit for me. Second, 2 per minute is basically 120 mobs an hour. When I checked my logs (for only one lesson - not going through everything) in 32 minutes I killed a 181 lizards. Can the proc rate be upped by 1 to hit that magical number in an hour?

A note, I have been raid geared and max AA for a while so mileage will vary for the group rangers.

Have to agree with this.

Here a few senarios.

Senario 1:

If I am example level 90, and I have slacked on getting AA, due to PL. Then I would be able to level up
my AA due to the bonus, and choose the good ones that is important. Up to the 4k thats the bonus.

After the change comes in, the 4k bonus is more or less gone with the Wind, and I will end up with
a bunch of AA thats not on my priority list.

This a bad senario for that person.

Senario 2:

I am level 90, and I have used the 4k AA bonus to my advantage of getting the best AA.
Now with Februar comes the AA granting.
I will now get all those AA that was not on my priority list.

This is double bonus then.

Compare senario 1 & 2 and it is rather unfair difference.

Thank you for your understanding, Shimmerleaf. These decisions came about with a lot of time and careful consideration. We know that this may not be popular to some people but it was necessary for the longevity of the game and for all players.

I dont assassinate, headshot, beam, swarm, or decapitate and I think anyone who complained about rangers headshot, and rogues assassinate...pretty much needs to find something better to cry about.

They are humanoid only abilities, so they are only really able to do it in a small corner of most zones. I could see changing Decapitate to a more specific mob type, instead of proccing on just any mob. But to complain about headshot and assassinate is just silly. They dont lag a zone like beaming, and they dont claim an entire zone like beaming in City of Bronze or large areas of a zone like decapitating berserkers sometimes do.

Beaming needs the nerf, decapitating could use a small tweak, assassinate and headshot are fine. If it aint broke, dont fix it.

To every paladin that claimed they never bought unicorn or act of valor....ha! Enjoy

You may want to wait to spend them. You have a good point.

* Each ability will have its chance to proc reduced. The intended chance to proc should average out to about 2 procs per minute

Will this mean that additional levels of hDex will lose value from the perspective of Rangers? I expect a massive reduction in proc rate, which I appreciate you intend, but from where I sit, pulling zonewide trains is not the method of choice for headshot farming in any zone with even a smattering of summoning mobs. Personally, I stick to more or less empty zones or instances and rarely root more than six at a time.

Having said all that, the reason I have needed to do that is pretty much exclusively to gather AA's for bots and alts, which as a practical matter will no longer be very important.

And what was the problem with making AAs gain faster as more AAs are added? Obviously there are other reasons behind the Gold Subscription change that you purposely aren't telling us.