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

Hopefully in the reading of the comments they also take a look at all the "new members" that have taken this topic to be the one they finally get the time to post about

Way way back in the day they were on NT servers, yes. But not now.

I think this patch their doing is amazing. the PL has gotten beyond out of control with the abilities way out of what they should be doing. and the AA's will maybe bring life back to this game with new players knowing they can be up to par faster with their friends they want to play with. I've had some friends who tried playing EQ and they give up and their main reason is Just way too much time needed to get max ll and a decent amount of AA's. so with fixing the PL people will be forced to group and play the game like the old days, and with the AA's being done will maybe bring newer people to the game.

I don't understand why people try to play the i worked hard for these AA. OK maybe you worked super hard for those AA but you also did it with a group most of the time unlike new players today who have a hard time finding a group to grind out their AA's.

Those who threaten cancelling their accounts its probably better if you did as its the most childish thing I have heard, if you really like Everquest your going to keep playing even if you quit for a month or so you know you'll be back as this game is unique and dynamics in size, quests, gear and weapons, etc. So I wanted to say TY for finally doing this patch to fix alot of issue with this game.

How about you increase AA gain rate, like you've done for the past few years?

Or you could explain to us why that doesn't work and we'll go from there.

Go back to raid! I'm telling Ommina on you!

We go from players mass killing 100's of mobs and causing the servers CPU's usage to become excessive, which causes other players to lose enjoyment to nerfing Rangers, Rogues who can kill a single mob at a time.

You have already nerfed us several times in the past years, removed headshot from our AE arrow spells except for mob targeted, also reduced the number of mobs it lands on.

You have already changed how quickly people gain AA at lower levels. Now you are going to give them away for no effort. Why don't you just make a couple new commands for new players such as:

/level 100 (grants you instant level 100)
/mgb raidbuff 100 (automatically casts the highest level buffs to all players around you)
/spellall (gives you all your spells)
/aaall (gives you all your alternate abilities)

Don't worry about skills because I am sure the person playing that toon doesn't have any.

If stuff is broken then fix it when identified, don't try to fix something that is not broken or has been good enough for years. You plan on fixing the chat channels dropping in a couple years?

If you are trying to aggravate a large portion of players then congrats. If you are trying to accelerate losing people keep up the good work. Just because you give people an All Access Pass does not mean they will bother to invest time in another SOE game. If you want to kill Everquest then just do it already.

How close are we to letting mercs raid?

The more I think about this the more I am okay with it.

Powerleveling needed to be fixed long ago. I recently made a ranger JUST because they headshot PL.. not because of the class, just simply their PLing ability, and thats not how it should work.

AAs, there is a dozen ways to implement this. I think Devs can find a creative way.

With that said, please fix global chat channels and instances not loading.. That should be 100% priority, because as a recent returning player, THAT is the most pressing problem I see.

Having just returned to Everquest after not playing since 2004 (WOW release) I started grinding AA the past three weeks to make my Level 70 Time-Geared Monk better at killing stuff my level. I thought the purpose of AA points was to be able to customize your toon, and make them more effective. There is satisfaction in earning your new skills.

How soon will it be that people walk away from EQ again, because once you are level 100 and have all the AA points, what is the point in playing this game? FYI, I left WOW to come back here because I was tired of housewives, and 12 year olds being given unobstructed, guided access to levels that only experienced and dedicated gamers should achieve.

I think giving away the AA points is a poor decision. Maybe increase the amount given for Hot Zone Dailies, or issue potions to increase AA gain for limited durations.

Nerf the Beam, it's only for the plat sites to sell back to us anyway. Leave the Rogues alone. Make Monks the baddest DPS in game so groups want me. ;-)

Kamaul -- Fennin Ro -- Formerly of Talons of Ferocity...

Wow! Talking squeaky wheel getting attention. So, massive amounts of whiners cry they want freebies and SOE is caving? Are you trying to push the rest of us off of EQ so we move on to the next game? After reading the 1st and 2nd post in this thread, I might need a new game. What's the point of working hard and earning our AAs if you are just going to hand them over? You going to give us back all those AAs we spent and let us spend it on something else? No, you did the same thing right after I got all the eyes-wide-open.

Additionally, the reason you pick particular classes is for their specific skills. EAch class should get an advantage because of the class chosen. Fair DOES NOT mean equal. It never has. Too many, supposedly educated people, do not understand something so basic. The my cleric starts headshotting and the rogue starts healing does not seem far away. These choices you make continue to make game play BLAH and brings down the community.

If people want that kind of garbage you are dishing out here, send them to EQ2. Many of us actually put thought into how we spend our AAs and gain satisfaction from the hard work we put into our toons. We take pride in what we've accomplished and you are about to sweep it all under the rug and a worthless waste of time. Since it is unlikely anyone will take the time to read this nor will my words really matter, I suppose I should find another game that wants my money and membership. My first, and probably last post on the forums. Pffft. I should have started with "Hey! Long time reader, first time poster...."

May your travels be safe and less grumpier than mine.
100 Cleric of "Erollisi Marr

Instead of changing classes spells and abilities in an effort to reduce swarming, would it be possible just to change the mobs so that only x number can aggro a PC at any given time? Just a thought

Of all the significant nerfs I can recall happening since I've played (Nov 1999) the proposal's mentioned here hearken back to the infamous shaker-paging. While there was merit in that change, by the time it was nerfed it had already become old-hat. The novelty was completely worn off and there was next to zero backlash on the community at large because of the select ways it could be employed in addition to the even more select people who had the talent to pull it off with useful effect. That said, it still stings as one of the more significant nerfs. Disease cloud was also a pretty lousy nerf, but who even remembers that one? My point is that the proposed nerfs have some merit as limiting zone disruption is a good idea, but removing abilities that have long become part of the class defining lore seems like telling a 52 year old man that he is no longer allowed to write with his left hand.

The large-cap granting of AA is a major slap in the face. I would question the real motive behind this as I can't imagine it is really feedback from returning players that it is too difficult to gain AA or the gap is too great between being useful and being useless or whatever terminology. The talent gap is what is going to be affected. Skill and class mastery are gained over time with effort and paying attention, mastery of the craft is necessarily dependent upon investment of self...not getting a large amount of free anything handed to you. If the consideration is seriously to give away things that are difficult to earn, however, returning players could probably use a lot more platinum in addition to the AA. Consider adding mobs that drop thousands of plat per kill and are easy to kill for players level 46+. This will aid returning players in getting beyond the nearly insurmountable AA barrier as well as give them well earned currency to help them more readily assimilate into the game they left. This is an option that I did not yet see considered.

Lest I ramble mindlessly, however, proc counters on spells & abilities have been a bad idea since they were introduced. They do not "balance" anything and I cannot understand how they make spells/discs "more in line with how they were intended". They make the use of said spell/ability almost obsolete.

An old example that comes to mind is ward of tunare (Paladin self buff). This semi-short duration self-heal proc (when it had no counter) was almost universally useful. Once the proc count was added it became far less useful. I have a difficult time believing this was the intent when it was originally introduced. The idea of having both a timer and proc limit on something (scorpion poison et al) seems as though it is intended to punish players for not timing things to a silly degree. Really, the rogue shissar poison lasts two hours and grants 60 charges. Someone on the developer end really thinks that two hours (one hundred twenty minutes) are needed to use up 60 charges of anything? An unlimited number of charges in two hours seems reasonable to me, and not OP. To contrast that with a proposal to add charges to the shaman sloth line, which iirc lasts around 8 minutes? Would we expect 16 charges? Will you consider putting counters on cleric/shaman/druid hp buffs that they should only grant increases to hp for a specific number-or-amount of melee or non-melee damage?

I would be in favor of removing proc counters from everything and letting timers function as they were originally intended. In the name of game balance and some unfounded fear of players becoming OP a great number of positives are routinely undone. This has potential to be the worst of them all. To what gain?

Both of the significant changes on a macro-scale appear to be deliberate attempts to cheapen & water-down the experience, not to fix anything that is legitimately broke at large.

How does removing the Bonus AA xp for gold members get people to actually sub ? Because if you auto grant 4k AAs at 85 you're removing it for all gold members once they reach 85. yet a silver member still has that bonus.

It's hard for me to answer - I can't make a character and add/remove AAs at will like a dev can (I assume you can) until I feel the character is "right." In terms of a paladin, I would ask what is necessary to survive at level xx and what AAs I need to fufill my very basic hybrid role. For a wizard, what is necessary to deal more damage than a wizard merc, and not die in one mob AE. For a priest, how much you need to heal more than a merc. For all classes, what utility AAs would be necessary for a player at level xx, and enough survivability AAs so you don't die if a blue con mob looks at you funny.

I might say half of what you propose, give or take. But the best solution, I think, would be to ask CRTs that know their class, and see which AAs a class needs at the level you are aiming for to be a functioning player, so that they would be preferred over a mercenary. I would not ask how many AAs they need, because it is too ambiguous a question.

I do not doubt that you understand that EQ distinguishes itself from other games of its type because of how much time and effort you can put into your character, and how it affects how effective a character you become. I would politely remind you to step back and realize that by giving out half the AAs in the game, you are removing, or at least compromising, that special distinction EQ has. If you need to push this live this month, for the love of Xaric, permit people the option to not have these AAs granted to them if they so choose.

Thanks for asking for my feedback.

Just had another idea. As an alternative to increasing the AA bonus cap and banked AA limits in my previous post, how about allowing players from 51-85 to gain normal XP and AAXP at 100% simultaneously? Ding 86, and then we get the slider bar to adjust what goes where. That would certainly help new players climb the hill and not take away control of their development.

Either of those options are a TON better than the auto-granting in my opinion.

So youll have free ~5k+ all your earned AA to spend and be virtually capped? Horrible idea.

I agree that most of these changes are long over due concerning the swarming issues, but to be fair to Rangers if you are nerfing the proc rate of headshot to 2 times a minute you should give more levels since headshot got no new added levels in RoF or CoTF. As far as the AA I think up to 5 or 6 expansions back would be a lot less offensive to the players that have invested so many hours in earning theirs!!!

I am not opposed to the removal of all swarm style killing. What I am opposed to is the collateral damage that this does to multiple situations that are not swarming. Specifically, for the SK class, this will definitely reduce their effectiveness vs single mobs as well, in solo, group, and raid situations. Riposte healing is a big part of the SK's ability to tank, in every situation.

Some sort of replacement for this portion of the SK classes tanking ability (in all non swarming situations) is a must.

I support both aspects of this change, in general terms. Details may need tweaking, or even overhauled, but it needs to happen.
You can change things (or not) to either prolong the attrition of the remaining playerbase, or to grow it. NOT making changes along these lines lends credibility to the "end of EQ" doomers.

As an SK (speaking only for myself), to help compensate for this change, I wouldn't mind seeing an AA line that allows healing-from-riposte abilities opened up to a set number of additional mob(s) per rank, up to an appropriate number. I've seen "12" tossed around this thread a lot. I don't know if this is possible, but thought it was worth throwing out there alongside suggestions of hit limiters and such.

I love how more people are worried about other people getting free aa's than changes to MAJOR CLASS ABILITIES that have the possibility of completely changing how the game is played. Who cares if someone else gets aa's if it brings more players into the game. In case nobody noticed the player base is shrinking at a depressing rate.