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. Leeanni Elder

    So rogues can swarm? Tell me how? Sure when I was working on a couple of evolving items, I went to Kaesora Library... 6 freaking expansions old. Swarmed maybe 4 at a time.. wow. That's going to break every server out there. Surely the rogue nerf can be reconsidered as it has nothing to do with swarming, but with simply nerfing a class that really doesn't have anything left to nerf. Yes, critters would come up to me and die from a riposte... but they were mostly green with a small amount of light blues. Not enough xp there to even make much difference on a complete clear of the zone. Please don't take away that ability from us.
  2. Langya Augur

    Yup. Pretty much.

    Thing is, change management is one of the most difficult things in life, and in a game it is even more abrupt. Everyone has found that road to happiness paved with gold and anything different than that is a deal breaker. Even if it is is overall beneficial to the grander scheme of things.

    The swarming was and is a mess. The shear amount of AA that has to be gotten is intimidating, especially if you want to role a tank and raid. If given the choice between just letting it all go as is versus this fix, I think just piling on even more AA to earn and allowing the swarming to continue unabated would kill the game off faster than anything in this patch. The game needs new players to continue, and this....love it or hate it, is part of attracting the new blood and hopefully retaining it.
    Qalliel likes this.
  3. Rainbowdash Augur


    1. When the way you play the game negatively impacts the way I play the game (server/zone lag. Bragging about things and pretending to be awesome with your swarmed 80k AAs) then yes I and anyone else affected has the right.
    2. Then...group? I know difficult concept. I thought EQ was a single player game with a built-in chat room for the first 2 seconds that I played it too. Once you hit the "Enter World" button you'll figure out that it isn't, I promise.
  4. MiataDriver Augur

    Um, perhaps you are thinking of SIlent Casting? Spell Casting Subtlety is not activated, it is passive.
  5. Perspero New Member

    WoW is a horrible game due to it's sheer simplicity. It's boring but they have a large player base. Why? Because Blizzard..... wait for it .... wait .... wait... okay now, ADVERTISE on TV. I've never seen a EQ commerical... ever! Get Betty White to tear through some content on TV. That would be great. Why should Shatner have all the fun?
  6. Shyann New Member

    What I don't understand, is that they are going to take away the ability to swarm pull, and beam pulls, because of server lag. Tell me what is the difference between swarm pulls, and beam pulls and AEO groups? I've been in AEO Groups, with a Mage, Wiz, and a Cleric, we pulled the whole zone, and then they AEO them all down, and the exp was flying by.. People have been doing this since the start of the game. If they're going to nerf characters, then maybe they should just take away all AEO spells too. I don't see any difference, because AEO groups cause server lag too, and they are pulling the whole zone. I also never seen a mage beam pull by them self, unless they are just a very skilled player, because the mobs would not be snared so the mobs would catch up to that mage and kill her, it takes more then one char to beam pull. Just like AEO groups need more then one char too. I think the game is just fine as it is. Why give free AAs to newbies that don't know how to play the game? What's going to happen, is everyone will be on the same lvl, and after the tier 4 gear in the new zones. Then we would have server lag because everyone is in the same zones. Keeping things just how it is now keeps the zones from being all full, because we have chars of different lvls all across different zones. Please don't nerf anything and don't give out free AAs, if you give out free AAs give as a vet reward to old players so after they max their main char they can go play on an Alt and not have to grind all those AAs. That'd be helpful to the old time players. I have a sister that is a newbie and she knows nothing about this game, and if you gave her all those AAs you will just be setting her up for failure, and people that let her group with them upset, because she will cause them all to wipe. If you're having problems with the server lag, update your processors for the server. Don't take the fun out of the game... Also if you give free AAs to everyone and they didn't earn them, that makes people that have worked so hard to earn them, that their lvl and AAs mean nothing. because in a just a few days a newbie can catch up to the old time players. If you think about it, that can already happen right now, so why help them out more? Please don't take change anything.
    Brittney and Youou like this.
  7. Harabakc Augur

    Maybe you should look at your AA list again. It's passive.
  8. Leighton_Orestes Elder

    Ok, so between this and splitting the buff on the cotf eye patch, as an SK we already are at critical mass between all of the clickies, raid buffs, and self buffs that I have issues even getting up burns sometimes. We can't block everything, because at some point it might be useful. If we die it takes forever to get everything back up so we're not worthless. Either combine some of the plethora of buffs we have that are all basically doing the same thing in a slightly different way, or work out some of these other stacking issues to consolidate some of this stuff. Maybe make a raid only spell that would be a combination between drape, shroud, and horror or something. This is the sort of thing we used to get back in the day. Look at the original Focus line on shaman. I honestly don't know of any other class that is basically riding the buff cap like SK's have to do to remain viable tanks.

    Regarding the SK epic change, I can live with removing the ability to swarm. I do however care about the ability to survive while tanking in group and on raids. Also, it is the only real viable utility we bring to our group and raids that affects other players. For the love of god, don't do anything to nerf our dps in the process. We may not be as bad off as warriors (who could use a boost btw), but we still can't touch a real dps class.

    There would have to be something else brought to the table, whether that be boosting torrent of agony, and give us a new theft of hate. Oh warriors get field guardian that will increase AC by 538, but Torrent of Agony at RKIII is a piddly 80ac, and only reduces mob AC by 80. Cripple at level 53 reduces the mobs AC by 45... Good sense of scale there. When mobs at 53 hit for like 150, and raid bosses are hitting closer to 45-50k unmitigated these days. Say greatly boost the hp/mana return on all of the group hp/mana taps would be a start in offsetting some of that utility. Some others have also questioned the proc rate and overall effectiveness on our innate group lifetap proc and rune aa's. These are existing lines that could be boosted to offset the very real loss in our ability to tank current content.
    Shyann and Leeroy Jenkins like this.
  9. Ibadan Kun'Tirel Augur

    Love this idea, devs. :).

    My main is doing well and won't benefit, but it will make playing with alts a lot more fun and a lot less of a grind. Yes, EQ is about the grind, some of the grind will still be there (the other 6k+ AAs for example), but this makes that process streamlined a bit, letting us get alts into higher content faster.
    Smallpox likes this.
  10. Sostenes Augur

    I am a returning player from 2002, I must say, the game has been radically changed in terms of difficulty upon my return, use to be that obtaining a mount was a tremendous achievement, getting a bag with 100% weight reduction was the envy of all, getting the infamous J boots also another admired task, getting an illusion spell or illusion artifact, dying implied losing a lot of exp, a big effort to recover body/recover gear, etc...

    Now, everything has been given to me, all expansions, a few mounts, a mercenary that does all the killing for me for dirt cheap, havent died too much, whenever I do I lose 1/8 of the exp I use to lose back in the day, I can recover my body in an easy safe location. I went from level 1 to 63 within a couple of months of sporadic playing time, almost have become a master chef, fisher, etc...effortlessly...

    If I want to get some nice gear I just pay a lil cash to SOE and boom, gear is there, an illusion, lil cash and boom, there it is, nice mount, lil more cash and its ready for me to ride, big bag? no problem, lil more cash...

    When it boils down to it, this is a game meant for entertainment, you want to be entertained? You pay a lil cash and you will get entertained, part of the fun I had when I was a young player (in 2002) was the fact that I had to pay to play, had to make my moneys worth within the game, achieve, conquer, accomplish goals, quests, etc...

    Fast forward 12 years later, I have a great job, a lil expendable income, I come back to Everquest to play and realize I can get everything I would like by paying for it and the little that I could achieve by game play (AA's) will now be given to me to by paying a month of Gold membership? Kills the entire thrill of playing, the thrill of achieving, because when the next expansion comes, all I have to do is pay another month of Gold membership and bam, I get another old school expansions worth of AA's...

    Not certain that this is the way the game will thrive, the mass killing does have to go, it creates bad in-game economics, people having hundreds of thousands and millions worth of pp is ridiculous, but giving away game content for people to "catch up" with the guys that have been playing for 5, 10 and 15 years...sounds like a bad idea.

    Sostenes
    Leeroy Jenkins likes this.
  11. dundada3100 Elder

    full sets of SK gear from Modest all the way to Dreadweave for sale now on the bazaar. Good job you made people quit. Is that what you wanted was people to stop playing?
    Brittney likes this.
  12. Darzag Elder

    Make it take less xp to get an AA point? HEY! When will someone make the connection? Doesn't have to be 18 or 20 AA points to get one AA. Lower the number of requiered points to buy an AA. Simple solution to the problem
    beryon likes this.
  13. Bigstomp Augur


    AA count has nothing to do with knowing how to play your class nowadays. I have seen plenty of high aa people who were utterly incompetent. I've seen plenty of lower aa people who were fairly skilled.

    I've been max aa on my main and the alts I bother to log in for a while. I think the AA grant is great, it lets new/returning members have a baseline (which content HAS been tuned around). They still have 4 expansions to catch up.
    Rainbowdash likes this.
  14. Smokn Augur

    I have to agree here, the nerf to swarming was way overdue, but this whole autogranting aa for upgrading your toon to gold is crap, your basicly saying that the 14 years i been grinding xp now wilk e handed out to every noob that has 15 bucks or enough plat to buy a krono.....Horseshit imo!!!!!!
    It use to be a prideful thing to kno you put in the work to get to 5k aa and it basicly ment that bythat point you should of mastered your class but with this now any n00b out there with a gold account will have that many aa..... Yall need to rethink this whole free aa crap BIG TIME!!!!!
    dpsdpsdps likes this.
  15. Puligimist New Member

    Rainbowdash- well shoot pay my subscriptions and the expansions I got over the past 15 years and I wouldn't mind it so much.. but the fact of the matter is it's not right for you to "justify" what YOU think is accurate. This whole thing is NOT right ... if you spent the time to improve your toon(s) you have the right to brag about your accomplishments .. I think your blaming your self for your misfortune over the years and trying to take it out on everyone else .. is that right? I think not .. beside this topic is not about YOU .. its about everyone new and old alike .. its not right that the veterans of this game are being forced into giving up what they had earned ... so I think you need to wtfu and smell the coffee ... cuz you are wrong sir... your whining about stuff that may or may not exist... nough said ..
    CaptAmazing likes this.
  16. Leaben New Member

    SOE should hire this guy instead of breaking 1/2 of the classes. I hope SOE really did exhaust all possibilities before going forward with these changes.
  17. Rainbowdash Augur


    ^^^ THIS. This cannot be emphasized enough. Numbers != skill. Skill = skill. It's the same reason why people on FV (or on Test, who copied from FV) buy raid gear and think it makes them gods and masters of their class. It doesn't. Not even close.
    Bigstomp likes this.
  18. Mackinaw Lorekeeper

    First off, my apologies for not reading all 44 pages of responses. After the first ten I gave up.

    Well I am undecided on the aa grant. I need to think on that a bit. I do think that there ought to be certain exceptions though. Certain aa's ought to be earned and some can be done away with entirely. Run Speed, Lung Capacity, Metabolism and See Invis ought to be off the auto-grant list. Most, if not all, of the innate ability aa's could be eliminated all together and I don't think most would even notice or care if they did.

    Overall my gut feeling is that rather than just give out every aa through a certain expansion, you should just auto add a certain percentage of the max aa points avail to the chars as they level up. Not all, but say somewhere between 50% and 75 % of what ever the max aa points they could have spent would be at any given level. This will drastically reduce the aa grind that is stalling so many new players to the game by allowing them to get the crucial aa's they need, (and many guilds require), and still giving them the option to stop and grind additional aa's if they want them.

    I would also exempt all tradeskill aa's from this. Tradeskills are one of the few places left in eq that can set you apart from other players. It's a completely optional part of the game and is available to anyone who wishes to pursue it regardless of whether they are casual groupers or end game raiders. Tradeskills as a general rule are not gear dependent, raid dependent or require anything of any kind other than dedication and patience. Finally, there are not that many tradeskill aa's relative to the overall number and if a player wanted them badly enough it would not take that long to grind them out. That being said, they should really have to take the time and grind them out the same way they would farm silks or pelts or ores.

    Anyway, that's my initial impression. Oh, and thank you for nerfing the swarming. I have really had enough of that screwing with my playing to last me a lifetime. Many thanks.
  19. MiataDriver Augur

    I've been playing since 2000, have 3 gold accounts, and no, not planning to quit over any of this.

    I don't really care about the AA grant as such. Yay, I finally get to max out all those innate stat AAs I was never going to buy... I think I have one or two characters that will actually get some minor benefit from this, and it will certainly allow me to start a new character and get him up to snuff faster.

    SK nerf, others have posted the details already as to why the full nerf in question is problematical.

    Mage beam pulling nerf, way overdue. There have been any number of times I have been unable to use a zone because an inconsiderate player was completely lagging out the zone. The other swarm kiters, I can't say that I ever experienced lag issues as a result of their activities.
  20. Vaft_Gnome Lorekeeper

    im not fond of the idea of auto granting aa's.

    that being said, as a mage i maxed out at 12k+ aa. i xp'd in groups with friends or soloing or boxing. it was boring at times..

    we all FEAR the ignorant newb joining our group who knows nothing and gets us killed. auto granting AA's will not change it, it will just make the newb beefier.

    eq (at least anywhere i hang out) has been full of people that dont know how to play their class since the start of the game. you cant make people want to be good, thats their choice. they can learn to play their class or not, and if they want to, auto granting aa's wont stop them from becoming good.

    with auto granting aa's we will have people playing some toon they dont know how to with lots of autogranted aa's, instead of someone who has pl'd aa's. it will be the same person not having a clue what they are doing.

    on the plus side, for people that will take the time and learn to play, or want to mess around a little with alts, it really does cut the time sink down a LOT, and now its WAY WAY easier for those that dont pl.

    i honestly think this will work out as a good move in the end, because at the moment there really is just too much time spent trying to catch upto the end game (where everyone wants to be mostly) if your starting fresh or new to the game as a hole.
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