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

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Piestro, Feb 4, 2014.

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  1. Versifier Elder

    You didn't ask me specifically but here goes...
    I think the solution you have proposed is not ideal and is in fact terrible for a lot of reasons! I'd like to propose a different solution.
    Starting at 51 you gain a number of AAs equivalent to your level every time you ding. Under my proposal at 51 a player would be granted 51 AAs at 52 they'd be granted an additional 52 AAs (You'd have 103 total AAs to spend at this point) continue this each level until 100. This would give everyone a base of 3775 AAs at level 100. If the 3775 total seems low you could double the grant every 5 levels (51 = 102 granted, 55 = 110 granted, 60 =120 granted, etc ) if my math is correct the total granted AA would now be 4500 AAs by level 100. This way you don't instantly negate the bonus XP curve for AAs, and you don't force a bunch of useless or possibly detrimental AAs on players, and it has the added benefit of allowing players to stop and grind out AAs at lower levels if they want to.
  2. Dalamyre Journeyman

    My main is a ranger yes I have used head shot to PL MY alts and aa's, But these changes are past due this game was not designed to mass kill a zone and have a few characters disrupt other people trying to play I would gladly give this up to help others enjoy this game.

    As I have read through the posts all the negative posts seem to come from people who want easy mode in the guise that these changes ruin game play or they come from players that use these techniques to earn plat by selling powerlvling. Open gen chat advertisements for these types of powerlvling is 50% of what you see in gen chat today.

    Easy mode is what has ruined the game today it was the challenge of the game play that kept EQ going for so long and the community who loves it.

    Maybe now some of the other less played classes will start to become viable again and maybe with more class feedback some of those classes will get the much needed balance they deserve and we may even see a bit more grouping together.

    As for the auto granted AA's I don't know how I feel on that On the same token I cannot see much on a negative game impacting affect to auto granting these aa's maybe make them an option? Let the player choose if they want em or not make them claimable perhaps.
    Kolani likes this.
  3. Skylark g New Member

    sorry but I feel SOE should return the aa points already spent on from all accounts from silver to gold. this is only fair , I see you guys are trying to new people to play but you are also destroying hopes and dreams of players that worked hard for their progressions. giving them everything we worked years for is wrong unless you make it right . that will ease the aa part a lot more for older players
    Vanety, Trackem - TSM and Mozzarella like this.
  4. poto Elder

    as a cleric how will this effect me being able to pull entire grey con zones for trade skill drops when noone in zone?
  5. Vidual New Member

    I rarely post on forums, but this incredibly bad decision has motivated me to. I'm talking about the AA's. It will kill this game for every person I know playing. Taking away all sense of accomplishment in an mmo is the death of that mmo. I have no interest in being given anything and I will stop playing the minute this patch goes live.
    ApollyonJones and beryon like this.
  6. revran1 Journeyman

    Dame everyone for this year anniversary SOE is giving the ranger. rogues. necro.sk.zerker
    EVERQUEST CARE these class are now wrothless
  7. Piestro Augur

    I'll certainly forward this on to the spell Dev.
    Darchon_Xegony likes this.
  8. Valcron Elder

    I gotta chuckle, you guys have the gall to turn around and blame players for your 2001 hardware you're still running the servers on. That whole CPU graph was honestly the most hysterical thing I've ever seen. I work at a financial firm, if I turned around and told the CEO that the traders need to not run their trading applications because they are maxing out our bandwidth, he would turn right around and tell me to fix it.
    Ardin, Rhuark, Dexar and 3 others like this.
  9. Gafgarion Elder

    These AA changes really alienate your core players. the people who have been playing for years, even since EQ started. please DO NOT give AA's away freely like this. it really degrades the integrity of the game, and personally, as a player of EQ since kunark era (2000, for you new people). A change like this sends a message that the core attitude of EQ is changing, and that perhaps i should leave EQ for another non-sony RPG. Please don't cheapen the experience of this game even more by giving AA's away.
    ApollyonJones and LoGiC like this.
  10. AlmarsGuides Augur

    I honestly think you should increase the amount of XP you get as a bonus instead of auto granting AAs.

    I can say that a lot of us that play EQ love EQ because it does take forever to get endgame and it feels so much more rewarding getting there. Games like WoW are so basic and simple and it just feels like a Call of Duty esque RPG and that is a major turn off for a lot of us.

    Me personally, I love EQ because it takes FOR_EVER to get anything done, however I can also see the need to make it take less time to get it done for people who don't have super nerd status like I do.

    I think the main change you can do to benefit everyone is increase the bonus XP until 5000 AAs. Make it so at level 51 - 75 you get like 1 AA a kill. The THRILL of getting AAs is to be able to spend them. Why would I want things auto spent for me into stuff I don't even want? That's just silly.

    In all the 'best' games, the thrill is spending stuff how you want it. In every final fantasy game the best parts are leveling your characters, getting new abilities and stuff. In WoW, look what happened when they auto granted talents. Do people even like MoP? Diablo 2, what made that game legendary? The talent system, leveling up, planning out what you wanted in the future and getting it.

    That's the spirit of role playing games, getting experience and progressing your characters, figuring out the route you want to take them and taking them there. Not getting hand fed a bunch of stuff, eventually getting overwhelmed then when it actually comes time for you to use half of what you have you're too clueless to even use any of it.

    I'll tell you what, if you think people don't know how to play their characters now, just wait until these changes go into effect (if they do). Even less people will know how to play their characters because half the abilities you auto grant them they won't even know they have because they never purchased, or were told they were granted them in the first place.

    I agree with the Powerleveling changes, sure it will anger people but NOTHING like what auto granting AAs will. I mean, swarming and all that we saw a nerf coming, if you didn't, seriously? Nothing that good that only some people can do lasts forever, I'm shocked it lasted as long as it did.

    But auto granting AAs... No... just no.... You need to seriously reevaluate that and figure out a better method than that.
  11. gringoflojo New Member

  12. Gragas Augur

    Nerfing Decap is kind of crappy, period. Refunding the AA's is gonna be a problem unless I can zone with more than 70 banked, cause pointless to buy Decap unless it will hit higher level mobs as well.
    Zanmar likes this.
  13. gringoflojo New Member

    This just seems weird but I guess consistent with this game where previous content suffers at the expense of the new. Have you thought about giving away just the class aa's and not general or archetype? This just seems strangely extreme like we should have a game world of lv 100's running around.
    beryon, Mozzarella and Dre. like this.
  14. CaRnon Augur

    Why can't you just leave clerics Shining line alone?!?! 9 minute timer on it was bad enough.. now adding counters to it and its gonna have us chain casting it on raids...
    Ardin and Mozzarella like this.
  15. Nightmares Augur

    Ok, question....
    1.) My bard is lv 89, has 1900 AA spent exactly. Is Silver account, so obviously I bought 9 cap extenders.
    If I go gold, I will then get all AA up through Underfoot, prolly roughly 4k AA. But if those are auto granted.... that means the 1900 I worked at are now wasted anyways as I could have just straight leveled as a gold member and gotten everything. So the question is... when I swap to gold, will you be re-imbursing me for those 1900 AA and giving me all the AA up through UF, where as I can spend the 1900 afterwards, effectively having 5900 AA? or are they lost? ( be very careful how you answer this cause a LOT of people will be pissed if their hard work, or the AAXP bonus, all is for naught).

    2.) On another subject, you are not limiting certain abilities that allow some classes to swarm but are limiting others that can? Wouldn't that unbalance the game even further?
    Also, for those that have these classes and used a TON of AA to make those Swarm builds, of those AA, which ones will be refunded? (As certain ones alone did not make a toon have the ability, but it was a combination of AA's.)

    A lot of these changes do seem in the right places, You have done a wonderful job explaining why you needed to do this and how you are going to go about it, and even giving a technical view on how it effects the server populations and the server hardware.
    Personally i do think some of this is a little excessive atm, but you are acknowledging that some of this is also being implemented for future updates and expansions. So based on that, we cannot know what is on the drawing board just yet. I do think certain things are being cut down a little too much though.
    For instance the Magician Brimbody line, you removed the 240 charges for 48, but you did not change mana cost, damage, or duration. It throws that spell out and makes it useless. for the same mana a Mage could use a nuke or 2 and do considerably more damage, that alone makes the spell obsolete. for this example, many of the changes fall in.
    I haven't seen anything in regards to certain special AA or items that are at current not limited to a specific number of targets.
    Beaming being dropped to 12 targets does limit its use, but still allows for beaming. However other swarming (melee based for example) classes now have limitations that bring them down way below the abilities of the beam classes (face it, these classes were already limited by mob levels where as beaming was not, so XP return was significantly less to begin with). With them now unable to "do there thing" due to adds not being affected by certain skills / AA, you have crippled them to 2-3 mobs max, while still having those same level restrictions. What this means is, if beam classes are down 90% of possible xp revenue, and the rest weren't touched, then they would have about equal XP potential, however with the rest being touched, the rest are down by 90% as well( will be even more for some). That's extremely unbalanced (this is in terms of XP gain based on number of mobs, and levels of mobs). In the same time frame of 30 min, a Beam class can get exponentially more xp than a melee swarm class (based on levels alone here).
    (And just for the record... these changes will NOT get people to start grouping more, if that is in any way part of the idea).
  16. Crysallis New Member

    Here are a few questions and thoughts I have, after thinking this over a little more.

    #1: Will all gold members no matter of how they acquired gold membership status get all missing Underfoot and below AAs? So, for example, I have 5k+ aa. Some of them are far above underfoot. Some of them are not. But, I'm over the 'minimum amount' of AA that rogues would acquire. Would I still get these aas, or will the game check if I have the 'minimum amount'?

    #2: Would the devs consider rewards for characters who earn maximum AA to generate more interest in doing all of the grunt work (before OR after the base level increasers?)

    For example, an illusion if you reach certain AA caps for each class, or an illusion AA -- IE, fun toys to help encourage people to go the distance and stay in game playing longer?

    #3: Are ideas involving daily missions and instances a possibility to help encourage faster growth of characters? I know something like this would get me playing more -- possibly on more accounts, too.

    #4: If we already have a lot of AA, or exceeding the minimum amounts, would the devs consider more than just a title? Clickies, illusions, /claim rewards on accounts, and so on? I think strong rewards -- and not just token ones saying how good they were -- would really help tone down the hurt prides over not being top of the class anymore.

    #5: If the idea is to encourage older returning players to come back to the game, as well as encourage new players to join the game, is it possible to unlock the level-to-group requirements? This is a pointless mechanic. WoW abolished it, scaling XP gain to match the difficulty of content to the groups in character with a penalty for having higher level help -- it takes longer than a group of regular-level characters to ding, but it allows people to level. In turn, babies could go to way too difficult places with their friends, still earning small amounts of xp for huge mobs, once again at a penalty for being with characters outside of their 'ideal level bracket'.

    This would remove the worry of power leveling while letting old friends hang out without leaving their low-level buddies behind. It'd let the higher level characters do useful content at the same time, too.

    I think bulk giving AAs is just patching over the real problem -- making it easier for people to group together or WANT to group together. I've been in the situation many times where a returning player just couldn't play with us because of the level caps for grouping ranges.

    I get the instances probably can't be fixed for level spread, but open zones might be a good way to let friends start playing together.

    IF you're going ahead with this, I think there should be quest lines and content created that explain discs, abilities, and so on, so these new players with buffed toons have half a clue how to play their characters.

    My biggest concern? We're going to have an influx of people who have no idea how to play the game with characters they have no idea how to use, all because they didn't have to go through their aas to spend them. I don't know about other people, but I learned my character by reading through and picking out the aas, and learning what sort of new abilities I had while playing the character.

    Then I read the forums to fine tune how to use those abilities.

    Just my thirty or so cents.
    Leeroy Jenkins likes this.
  17. Bryender New Member

    This thread is amazing.

    Up until recently I had 8 active accounts, I have a level 100 of just about every class. I have used a SK for swarming, a Ranger for headshots, a rogue to stab some peoples, a berserker to decap some fools.

    Out of all of those characters, my bard has the most AA's, almost all of them are from me taking the time to play the character and earn them. As of me writing this post I 250 days played on the bard. It is possible to meet those heights of needed AA's from the wall of experience that impede so many, the tools are available people just have to look for them online.

    What is something like a daily bonus was put into game. The more often you log in and play for a certain amount of time, you get experience bonuses, faction bonuses or platinum bonuses. It scales based on days logging in. Something along these lines has been put into play in a few other games that I have played, and it does help speed up the process. Possibly scaling with consecutive days of logging in and playing, that way to encourage players, well to be on and play.

    As far as the changes to Mages, Rangers, Rogues, Berserkers and Shadowknights, well sorry all your fault for not playing a bard. I am still waiting for my damn taunt button and a useable bow and archery skill.

    I was really excited years ago when the Legacy of Ykesha expansion was released, was absolutely positive that the next expansion would involve Miss Piggy as the next playable race to go hand in hand with the Frogloks but you can't get everything you want.

    Keep it up, I support you all this game has been a hobby since 2000.

    Bryender
  18. Blaze69 New Member

    I know its not a direct answer to your question, but in a sense, its another solution that eliminates the question.

    I think the most frustrating thing about this whole situation will be determine by the outcome of it all. As I continue to read every single one of the responses I see duds and one's that present very well thought out idea's and fact's. If the Dev's read what we, the people of EQ are saying, and respond and act appropriately it will look amazing. Of course if it goes the opposite direction, that is essentially the EQ staff telling us they do not want us anymore, and we can all just move on. In the situation where they do not in fact respond correctly, I have this vision of like 11k people walking outside into the sun light like some hypnosis has just been broken. I spoke my peace on page 5 (took me some time to type it, don't be afraid to go read it) But as I said previously, I think beam should be corrected, as it should have a long time ago. But as far as the class changes, its simple... Make the Zerker's AA match the same restrictions as ranger's and rogue's, and then leave EVERYTHING else along. Thing's as of current are working, and are producing revenue. You are taking the wrong approach to help improve this. Bringing in a new player base should be done in a way that allows the new people to smoothly flow into place with the current people.

    I understand that my suggestion before required you guy's to build a zone and do some quest's, but that is what we pay for isn't it? Build a zone, and allow new built character's to start out at level 65. Build a nice eye catching tutorial that allows people to learn the basics. Place AA achievements into the pool that make it so once a character reachs, persay, 500 aa's, he gets rewarded a bonus 500 aa's, because it's incentive to progress. This allows for a quick roll into the current community that doesn't upset the 90% that disagree with your idea's.

    One last piece.. Your whole concept behind EQN is for the people, by the people. So as people who have been supporting you for 11+ years, listen to us full heartily, because without us you Dev's are nothing, and vise-versa as well.

    The bell's are ringing, will you listen?
    Leeroy Jenkins likes this.
  19. Ronak Augur

    Great solution. This would address the situation perfectly.
  20. Jaylin Augur



    Just picking a piece out of this message. The spell really didnt change that much. It was 240 hits, not procs. 240 melee attempts on you and the charges would be gone. This may have only been 15 procs, it could have been 80. On average the proc from the last time i actually parsed it, was only about 50 times it procced before it was gone. I may be wrong, but from what i understand, it wont count the attempted hits anymore, but the actual times it went off. Its mostly just visual now.
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