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

When these updates happen an my toons can no longer get me aa's by myself i'm out I don't want your freebie hippy I like to earn my aa's and my levels I don't want to be handed a we f'd your toons up here's a consolation prize. it's the same ole bs from one year to the next people being jealous over another class that can do this or that blah blah blah. eq was never meant to be "Easy" give people aa's whats to work for. take an sk's ability to heal himself from multiple mobs not only cripples his soloability but loses his ability to offtank some nasty stuff. ranger hs.... really. yea causes ungodly ammounts of lag doesn't it. idiots. Zerkers decap can pull 3-4 mobs that are lb an hope to decap in time. raid geared zerks have aa and gear to withstand more, pull 20 mobs and hope to see the end of it, most don't but w/e. mage beams watching them run like druids back in the day... priceless. wtf do rog's even do? . never seen one do any mass pulling but w/e you guys are the best judges...ahahahahaha. eh anyway
everything can swarm not just these classes you plan to nerf because you run servers. you and the whole community knows its time you upgrade to current hardware. or you can screw with your player base an see who wins on that one because I can guarantee these changes hit. me an my 4 other subs get canceled and we wont see you in eq next. because if you can't stay with what made you successful to begin with I don't want to get into another game that is going by player base whiners.
The fact that you choose to nerf enjoyable classes to keep from doing the right thing "Upgrading tech"
tells me this isn't the eq I use to enjoy. so go on sony like welfare give them what they want so they don't have to work for it anymore.

Mage beaming needed to be nerfed. Current content is a no no.
The other abilities should be handled differently. I'll let them make suggestions but please don't destroy their niches because of mages beams.

No to auto granting AA. Stop taking away what makes this game special. You will not retain or take in enough new players who left long ago or choose newer games by changing this game into a clone of other games. This chases away those that have never left. Make AA xping faster by increasing the bonus provided as well as increasing the cap it applies to. Every class is most of the way there with 3 to 4 thousand well purchased AA. Which takes weeks if you actually play a little each day with potions, lesson and daily tasks. It's never been so easy IF you actually play. The rest are fluff or minimal at best.

Stop making the game easy quest. Or the devs five or ten years from now coding the shell of this game or it's replacement that fulfills what old EQ will be saying how big a mistake you guys made by stripping away EQ and by nerfing in mass vs individually case by case.

I vote no on AA's. Players should earn them, it's one of the few things left that shape us as individuals in the game. I know that when a level 80 in Hot Courtyard with 50AA's is lfg I can expect to be babysitting him/her all night whereas a player with 2kAA's I can expect a good night.
Give us all 5k AA's for free and all you'll be doing is pushing more players into end game content. Not even good for raid guilds when they can't determine dedicated players from those who dabble a bit.
It was a mistake to give players the ability to wipe entire zones with one character. Free AA's won't stop level 100 bards from swarming CR. It won't do anything to stop people swarming quest mobs in higher level hot zones either.
If there's no money for upgrades and swarming is the issue then make it fall under zone disruption and in game customer support needs to deal with it.

I have concerns, because the responses from the Dev's is, well at least seems to me, like people behind the shadows have already made a decision and are comments can only help shape how it happens. The nerfing of swarming. fine. Leave SK's alone because they need what they need to be a proper utility. But the AA's, people are upset because yes, working for it, we did, and so should others. The biggest thing that has faltered over the years is community support to player base. Rather then getting a tell of someone asking for you to go help some newb, and saying yes just cause, it has a price tag on it.

I express my concerns because I am worried that if this goes through, and it does cause a clusterbomb to this MMO, all it takes is 1. By that I mean this...

I play this game with some good friends of mine that have become such over the years, and if they are pushed away by these changes, why would I want to stay? If even one leave's, its like a domino effect. This is like the Y2K scare, except more of a possibility of failure and disastrous results.

Day one and already so many have voiced there opinions, and others have agreed. One thing that I do not like about some of what is being said, is hearing people's voice of reason, because it presents a state of jumping around the fact that you are to scared to say, this sucks, don't do it, and this is why. We pay for this game, and are the reason it still operates to this day. So be honest, maybe if they feel the sand building in their pockets, they will realize what a foolish mistake they are trying to impose on us.

The reason I am posting so much is I have 5 accounts, have had them all since 2001. And for those who are curious what that has to do with anything, ive put, in accounts payment's alone (not including ALL the LoN stuff and marketplace stuff) 10 grand.. So I feel my voice is important

Why don't you leave things the way they are and just increase the aa curve to 10k AA and put the base at something silly like 5000% bonus exp. That way people can choose their AA and still gain them at a silly rate.

As for all forms of PL... i agree with the nerfs.

Long time lurker here, just to throw my 2 coppers in about this change. Generally, I'm all for making the newbie experience better. While long time EQ players may not see a problem with a few thousand new AA to get each expansion, that can be a tremendous hurdle for new players.

That said, I am concerned specifically about the change to remove life leech effects on SK riposte and the consequences that might arise when tanking in normal situations (i.e., not swarming). No doubt this plays a part of our mitigation overall, and could have an impact on gameplay as intended. One of my standard procedures on getting adds in camp is to click the epic and possibly a disc if needed. Maybe the devs would prefer epics go away, but it's become a standard tool in the SK kit. Please consider any changes to these abilities carefully.

I can understand the need for a nerf to beam, and the point is well illustrated by the data and thorough explanation by the devs. The hardware limitations and provable impact on the playing experience of others is compelling and undeniable - a valid 'nerf'.

However the rest of the changes seem excessive and rather unnecessary, likely based on whimsy than the hard data presented - or at least some aspect of spreading the pain to appear impartial. I agree with the sentiments expressed here that classes are being equalized, when the reason many of us put in so many hours is to separate ourselves from others in both skill, gear, and abilities.

In regards to the free AA's, it feels a lot like a cheap concession to potential customers at the expense of those of us who have been loyal to the game for over a decade. You can't really give something away for free that others have worked hard for without devaluing the effort in the original acquisition.

I like these changes and definitely appreciate the extensive explanation.

I do suggest that you don't just give the AAs away for Gold status. I have to say that I do enjoy the AA grind. It is quick, easy work with fast feedback on the effort. I would suggest that you find a way to earn the AAs. I'd like to earn them, even if we earn them much faster. Examples of possible options:
1) Lower their cost to 1 AAEXP, with a chance the purchase will "proc" for free.
2) Tie them to other AAEXP entries. When you buy Armor of Wisdom 15, you get xxx for free.
3) Have a quest for trivial items (Beetle Eye, wolf pelt, etc.) that gives the AA
4) Have an option to award them. If you don't use the option, then the person can have a special title or mount or armor look, etc. At least in that case, if we worked for them, we can "show off".
5) Make a few new high-level AAEXPs which only can be acquired if you don't take the "auto award" mentioned in #4. Again, not game-changing AAEXPs, but some kind of "show off" AAEXP.

Thank you.

Gold Membership (Revenue) will Decline with AA Auto-Grant:

1. Players will abuse the change: Activate Gold (especially with Krono) for 1 Month, Auto-Grant, and De-activate til Next Expansion. (Gold membership for AA gain is a draw for non-raiders and casual-style players).

2. Players will lose faith in the system: Players will feel wronged for previous subscription and time spent. They will hesitate to spend further time on progression with the specter of "freebies." Why waste any more time? ("New" players with All-Access change will now leap frog veteran players - pre-All Access).

In essence, AA auto-grant undermines the "carrot" (reward), sets a poor precedent, and puts a bad taste in the player base. I would suggest another scheme (achievement, quest, Vet AA, potions, more daily tasks, expanded xp curve), or delaying a final announcement and implementation.

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

Currently with AA slider at 100% once you have max banked AA for your level you will gain level XP.

With auto-grant there would be no reasonable means to spend much time below Level 65, at Level 65 you can buff block Glyph of Angry Thoughts and drain AA as quickly as you desire.

You could just drop Glyph of Interminable Reward to req 51 and remove the Alaran Knowledge pre-req to lower the level you could reasonably stop levelling at to 51 and not require players to rely on the quirk that currently the sequence is AAs are spent, AA fails and AA insta refreshes.

Can't you just grant us X amount of AA's to spend how we see fit? This eliminates killing the AA xp curve, and allows us to bypass the we don't want.

Heh, it could be because the people who cut the checks don't really care all that much except for the bottom line. Hard to fault them really. If the name of the game was to make people only feel good I'm sure there would be a lot of broke companies out there.

The nerf to the SK Epic click will be huge, and will basically break us as raid tanks as well. Our main class advantage is our ability to AE taunt. The reposte healing from Lich Sting and AE taunting goes hand in hand. Our epic click is also our only real offering of group "utility" in the raid game as well... Make every mob summon, please do... But don't break the back bone of a class.

played since 99. 3 toons at 100, one max aa, one nearly there and the third rapidly approaching max aa. I play early morning mountain time zone for about 2hours a day. I usually am in zones 2 back from the current expansion, so my focus is running dailies for aa's. hard to find a group at my playtime. even harder to do anything in the latest expansion. had been thinking of starting to play some of my lower toons , but with these changes whats the point? maybe it is time to just move on

Just a side note.. these changes make me want to play less not more. I already have 0 aa to get on my main character. Now I'm looking at potentially spending AA or levels that I'll get free if I just dont' bother playing. Why would I spend time getting aa, when I could just wait till you give it to me.

1: I think I'd rather see it done to maybe 10 expansions back, versus up to Underfoot -- as someone mentioned before, 85+ is where things start getting harder anyway, so maybe bring up to line to lvl 75 or 80? LVL 80 is where we start getting some of our newer abilities players really need to start understanding. This would also lower the hue and cry a bit, I think.

2&3: Yay!

4: Illusions are cool status symbols, are fun, and players enjoy them. Give them a slightly better click that stacks with most things, and you have a non-game breaking reward.

Other ideas for rewards: Special Mounts, Clickies (Instant click levitation, long-duration levitation/other clicks), non-gamebreaking clickies that might be useful to people -- clickies to teleport to old-school, hard to reach zones not often used -- like original Eastern Wastes. New Mercenary Models. Clickie that offers stat food a little weaker than loyalty food, You could even do things like open an aa line that gives additional hp/ac/stat increases like you're doing with that one do quests line, but make it rewards for having max aa. Once again, non-gamebreaking, and rewards characters for putting in extra work.

Larger bags work nice too, especially if you can't get a matching bag in market or as a drop. Also doesn't break the game if the players have to work hard to earn them. (And for these bags, I'd say non-heirloom to encourage them to work on the same goals for their other characters..)

Maybe for rogues you could add in a weapon ornament or some such with a cool graphic that says "Hey look, I'm cool! I did these nifty things and can make my pokey look nice." Rogues could get a weapon aug that offers an extra point of backstab compared to current content with the same base damage as the best in-game aug drop -- that wouldn't break the game and give the maxxed aa'd, pardon the pun, an edge over the ones who haven't maxxed their aa.

For me, personally... I think my character should be given an exception to be a raptor riding a raptor. Just because I love raptors. <3

There are lots of things that could be done to nod to players, giving them USEFUL rewards without being a game breaker.

P.S.: Illusions capable of riding mounts outside of PC would be really nice.

Whats sad about the Headshot change is that Headshotting is the most use ranger's bows get nowadays. If you nerf that, you might as well rename the class too.

Love it, love it. Well done, bravo (no sarcasm intended)

This is the worst possible thing I have ever heard of on Sony's part, if this goes through I am un-subscribing on my 4 accounts, and NEVER playing another Sony game, this will just tell me Sony is trying to make this a game for the children who cannot stand to grind, therefor should have never set foot on EQ's soil in the first place. I'm honestly in total shock about this, like you have got to be kidding?! Not even going to read the other notes, since this is just sickening. I just ate, I'd like to keep my food in.

The SK nerf on riposte healing from melee is HUGE. This is going to severely impact our ability to survive in normal tanking situations versus just ONE mob. Our self healing has been stated as why we haven't gotten increases to our tanking ability in the past, that it's been a major item considered when balancing the tanking classes, and why our lifetap base damage hasn't been increased higher than it is.

I would be fine with taking away the ability to proc lifetaps off ripostes if a couple things were done:

1.) For our innate / spell based procs:
Increase the proc rate of our melee based taps and / or increase the amount of the taps.

2.) For our epic "Lich Sting":
Raise the percentage of the tap off melee to make up for the lack of riposte based procs


I understand the intention behind the nerf ( due to swarm kiting ) but the unintended effects will far outweigh the benefits gained. It will literally destroy our ability to survive in many situations, especially given the fact that we're granted many AE aggro based tools...yet our means to survive the aggro is essentially being lowered.