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

It isn't.

The bulk of mages do not beam kite. While I don't spend my time in exp zones these days, whenever I've been in them, I've never seen a mage beam kiting, and my server has a A LOT of mages.

Do you know who does swarm regularly, though?

SKs. Berserkers. Clerics when they want to solo exp.

It's those classes who ought to have been asking themselves what complaining about beam kiting lagging out zones is ultimately going to bring about, because mages do not need beam kiting to get decent solo exp. They, on the other hand...

This is all a political plot by Franklin Teek to get more business.

Why not instead of just giving away AA's, make it so that you need to complete achievements for each expansion before you get them? Make people work for them and experience the entirety of the game at the same time. Not to mention making achievements actually mean something.

I have done that. But it would be fun to have something new. It doesnt really teach anything new about how the game has changed at all in the 8 or so years since it went live. The first 50 levels are nothing, its the 50-95 that discourage newer people. And the aaing of having a 10k wall that discourages.

try in 1 hr to 60

You don't get to lvl 60 in one hour unless you get PL'd, don't talk lies.

Even if you get DS PL'd, that's still not enough to make it to 60 in one hour.

Nothing was wrong with the way assassinate, decapitate, and headshot worked. Each one relative on zone geometry , pathing, and adaption and skill of player. Plus these mobs do not give any real exp gain onto a players character of 100th level respectively. Trash clearing indeed.

Fix to beaming=Change some of the treants and flowers to casters for evantil.

Plane of Shadow=Same fix. Double mob to more caster count. Its a freaking Plane.

Taking the ability away for a mage to hit multiple targets and wizards limited?=What happened to the "do anything attitude" in the video games we love. Takes away from immersion don't you think? Quit messing with our immersion. I do agree that you taking the lag seriously is warranted. Maybe time to upgrade the game thats been your bread and butter and the "everflow" of money into you creating games that have flopped. Why create new when you can upgrade to greatness...again. You know even the classic's need an oil change and tune up. Why not treat the workhorse that's gotten you so far and allowed for wrong turns and dead ends and be able to keep driving you where you wanted to be taken be brought back out to that showroom floor again?

Given free AA's? Nothing in life is free. Anyone who tells you that is selling something.

Yeah, I do not like this just giving everyone the AA, I think you should just change the curve do you get more AA XP... this way you feel accomplished after you earn and spend them as you choose.. spending them is half the fun as you get to customize your toon, and you are going to take that away from everyone new and old

Regular like 1 times an hour for zerker, thats the cooldown for reckless disc, almost 3 times an hour with full AA.

I would like to add that the assassination rate when backstabbing for rogues is absurdly low. Maxed at my level (85) it rarely goes off. Could the rate change possibly apply to just throwing weapons and not backstab? I don't level with assassinate because it's awful unless you swarm a massive amount. Rangers, however (played a 95), HS almost constantly. Headshot, rogue's range, and decap via range should all be the same IMO. Or at the very least, similar.

This is a fine balance for sure and I totally agree with making these mass pullings stop. I think there is a fine balance between this and letting people feel powerful/fun. Maybe this means AA's or discs that give a larger limit (not infinite) on a long cooldown so every once in awhile you can go crazy? Perhaps this means a precision attack where your next 10 BS's are assassinations and it's on a long cool down? A similar ability could work for rangers and zerkers.

My 2cp...

Are you sure that's a demotion? I do love me some donuts.

Part of the challenge in this type of approach is the differential between classes. A chanter is fine with 1k at 85 (not great, but definitely functions). A tank isn't so fine. Wizzie is better off than necro with that total.

We frequently upgrade hardware, simple hardware changes aren't a solution. Hardware upgrades kick the can down the road a bit, but ultimately they don't change the root problem.

While I understand the point you are making, at the same time anyone can be powerleveled to 85 and 4kaa without ever having to learn their class. People will learn or not, that's on them. I have played with plenty of maxxed out players in my group who didn't do the basic things that would have made our group successful. And this is people with 10x my played time on my "main".

One of the hardest core players I know codes on EQ.

I know you've posted at other points in this thread, but please explain a little more why. This is important to help us take your feelings into account.

This is something we take into account when doing datamining on the thread.

Very far. On the plus side they have a better chance of getting mechanics than some people I've raided with.

This problem is pernicious, but the devs are certainly working on it.

Understood. Unfortunately many of the AA went from being a way to customize your character to necessary to be effective a long time ago. That's the challenge we're trying to address right now.

It could, but this is a far more reaching change than most realize. This impacts everything from blackburrow trains to some raid design.

We've definitely started discussion on this. We can't promise anything, but we will at least consider this topic.

We're asking for everyone's feedback specifically. Thanks for giving yours.

Even if no one is in zone what you are doing is impacting performance in other zones. That being said it'll be smaller pulls and an occasional active heal.

My understanding is that only the heal proc will have counters on it, the base effect will be separate.

1) yes, all gold characters would receive the grant regardless of current AA count
2) I'll mention it to the team
3) I can mention it as well
4) Ideas for rewards are welcome, ultimately the biggest concern if we go that route would be not granting significant power that is never accomplishable another way so that we create a different problem 5 years from now.
5) We've spread this out pretty far right now, a level 70 of most classes can't contribute too much grouped with a level 100 as it is. I don't think the devs are considering this currently.

When we talked about it it was specifically to keep the damage prevention portion working after the charges fade. I believe the charges portion will go in the song window or similar.

We do too. Everyone who has given helpful feedback on these changes (either pro or con) is doing something important to help EQ grow.

This would still be possible. You could still set the AA slider to 100%.

BINGO! I bought aa cap increases also, up to 2000, WHAT ABOUT US?

Something that bothers me about the entire nerf is that both types of swarming are treated the same way, even though the reason they cause lag is inherently different.

One type of swarming intentionally lags the server so the NPCs stop moving (lol mage beaming), and the other type of swarming the lag is an unintentional effect.

Oh well.

If you are looking to enable the expanding of class specific single-target abilities like headshot for the future, why don't the devlopers consider putting a flag or modifier on all humanoid mobs which are above the current headshot max level (I believe it is L85), and use that to allow the code to apply a different proc rate for that level of content. Have the ability proc code check for the flag (or modifier) on the mob and use it to decide the proc rate logic.

And now all of our vet AAs are popping on zone.

Actually, they will be selling level 85 characters with presumably 4000AA. It's very clear to me they introduced this proposal as a way to forestall complaints about how hard we had to work for them and what would we be getting in return.

I only used this quote so I could respond to this mindset, in part, not this particular author. I'm also not as "new" as my New Member tag would suggest; I've simply never had a reason to post since 1999. That said...

I have a real job, I know grinding Levels/AAs isn't "work". However, I play this game to progress. There's much better games out there if I wanted the best graphics, the coolest stuff to play dress-up in, or chats that actually work.

I spend a lot of time considering character options when I play a game. It takes a good amount of time/effort to build and progress a character; I have zero desire to play all the classes. The characters I run now were chosen based on what they can do within this game (with the current rules, abilities, etc). I couldn't care less about you eliminating swarming/beaming because it doesn't affect me. However, your changes, as proposed, are exceptionally harsh for the SK class. It's been covered by others and it's obvious. The fact that it wasn't obvious to you, before you proposed these changes, is disturbing, to say the least.

I started an SK a month ago and have been feeding him SC potions ever since to get to 100 and get a start on AAs so I can be of some use when I use this character to play with friends. Yes, it was my choice to spend money on SC to buy potions. I made this decision because I wanted to level a particular class as quickly as possible. Now you're telling me I could've just waited a couple months and saved a ton of money and grind time? That's fair? I don't see how anyone can say it is with a straight face.

I have a 100 mage that never "beamed". I now have a 100 SK; haven't swarmed, wasn't looking forward to it either. I can level/AA just fine without beaming/swarming. I have 4 gold accounts, each recently sub'd for a year. I'm one of those evil boxers that isn't interested in begging for a group every time he wants to play, sorry (sarcastic apology; why it's anyone else's business how I play a game I pay for is beyond me...I'm not killing 'your' mobs and I wasn't going to group with you anyway, sorry again).

If you're going to make the time I've sunk in to this game over the last few months meaningless, not only am I cancelling, but I hope you folks quickly set up a system to pro-rate and refund the remainder of long-term subscriptions. You can keep the $160 I just spent on CotF. You can keep the hundreds I've spent on SC in the last couple months. Keep the $25 for the character transfer that just went through yesterday. But, I'll be damned if you're keeping the rest of my subscription fees when I move to another game because you changed the rules and your game no longer appeals to me. Nine months or so in to EQ2's existence, SOE started making major changes and I bailed there; this is no different. The ever-moving goalpost doesn't work for me, sorry one last time.

To those of you that see this type of attitude as "a threat"...please. I paid for a product/experience. If the changes go forward as proposed, this product/experience will no longer be something I'm interested in. That isn't a threat, it's a statement of fact. It's that simple; there's no emotion in it beyond minor annoyance. Please stop assuming that your way is "the right way" and that people that don't agree with you must be irrational, threatening, wrong, or whatever. The world would be an awfully boring place if we were all the same.

You think beam kiting takes 10 seconds...?

Don't need to inform me how it's done. I know how it's done. It's done the same way smart SKs do their mass exp sessions -

* Gather 50+ mobs
* Pop lesson, pop disciplines, get tons of AAs
* Camp out and wait 30 minutes for disciplines to be up again while preserving lesson time and allowing time for mobs to respawn
* Repeat

Intentional or not, it's a problem both ways.

guess you will not know how to then.