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. Rainbowdash Augur


    Pretty sure back in 1999 there wasn't 5 different "end game" zones with one singular person pulling 100+ mobs mass killing them by himself causing the entire zone to rubberband but perhaps my memory is failing me. Or you're thinking of another game. The few times it did pop up though, it was quickly removed or nerfed in some way.

    The auto granting AAs thing is a very legitimate thing to be concerned about, however. My post, and the laughter contained within, was directed at people crying they can no longer swarm or mass kill, and acting as though the inability to do so completely destroys the game for them. and I continue to laugh at them. However the people making arguments against auto-AA-granting are completely valid. and one of the only things i can see myself having a real issue with in this patch. But ultimately it doesn't bother me much. Being max AA myself I can totally see that upsetting people. But in the end you get bragging rights! You get to say "you know what...I got all those AAs before they were auto-granted. i'm pretty proud of myself!". Another good example would be people that got Tear pre-nerf. Or like how I just finished all the LDoN's last night and got Hero's Journey done. At 5 minutes per run (there's a request timer) and 366 total runs...that's a lot of time spent grinding grey con mobs. But if they added in a patch tomorrow and said "Hey guys, Wayfarer's Emblem will be obtainable after doing just 10 LDoN's per camp rather than 70+ as it was previously" sure i'd feel like I wasted a lot of time. But I mean, it's a video game, isn't this entire program designed to waste time and entertain you while you do it? I'd get to say "you know what... i got all those LDoN's done before they nerfed it! I worked hard for my title and illusion and clicky nuke!". In the end it just doesn't bother me personally.

    However, seeing as I can totally understand people's negative reaction to the auto-granted AAs, it may be a better idea to add some method of opting in or out of the auto granted AAs. Perhaps a Yes/No pop-up every time you hit a level starting at 51 up until 85? Or something of that nature? That way people that would use that to catch up to top end quicker (The reason many people swarmed, and the entire reason they are putting the auto-granted AAs in with this patch in the first place...to negate the swarming being removed as a method of quick catch-up) can do so while the people that want to earn the AAs can turn it off and earn them themselves.
  2. Arahgorn New Member

    I have two points of interest from these proposed changes.

    1) Auto Granting AA.
    I sincerely disagree with auto granting AAs to anyone, at any time, with the exception of Beta. Earning your AAs is one of the key elements to EverQuest that no other game has and is a source of great pride for anyone who has played this game for more than 6 months consecutively. Auto granting AA would be intensely disrespectful to the players who have invested their time grinding their AAs for days, weeks, months and yes, years. I do agree that people need a quicker way to obtain them at low AA counts and applaud the recent efforts to assist players catch up, but there is no reason they can't play the game and earn them like everyone else. Increase the rate of AA experience gain even more so than it is now, by an obscene amount if you like, but make people earn them by questing and killing monsters.

    2) Head Shot.
    I am a ranger and have used head shot to gain multiple levels and gain thousands of AA. There have been times where I have personally been responsible for lagging out a zone while doing it, so I understand why you want to stop that from happening. However, if you intend to go through with your proposed reduced proc rate, while retaining the head shot level where it currently is, then I feel that you must also change the amount of damage this ability hits for into a REAL head shot. Currently a single head shot does not even come close to slaying a monster at the highest rank. Only when head shot is boosted by discipline, spells and/or abilities does it reach a legitimate head shot. The highest level group monsters in the current head shot level range have about 700,000 HP (argathians). A plain head shot from my level 100 ranger with maxed AAs, no buffs, discs, spells or abilities being used, will hit an argathian for 169,410 damage. A boosted head shot from my level 100 ranger with maxed AAs in full raid Rk3 raid buffs, using Bullseye Discipline Rk3 + Guardian of the Forest + Outrider's Attack + 40% archery debuff from Forecasted Shots, will hit an argathian for 1,042,421 damage. I would propose that the minimum head shot be able to kill the argathian in a single shot for 700,000 damage and ramp up from there with buffs, discs, spells and abilities. Perhaps that request is too much, but please remember that head shot only works on mobs flagged as humanoid. That restriction greatly limits the ability and without a significant increase to the base damage along with a proc rate nerf, it really doesn't have much value.
  3. Phelon New Member

    I'm for the nerfs to swarming. I'm a little worried about what the SK lifetap changes do to end game tanking (I've never had an endgame SK and can't be sure). The AA grant works I think.
  4. Nightmares Augur

    So Poetic!!! /applaud /cheer /salute /hug /lifetap(well? what did you expect from an SK?)
    Seriously though, You said it for SKs right here. Enough Said, Piestro, I hope you read this.
    Runzwith, Zurd, Harabakc and 2 others like this.
  5. Zanmar New Member



    I was 100% with you until you got to zerker. I know the cleric life isn't easy, but i've been out zerking for many years. about 8 years. I can't molo any in current expansion. can barely molo in high end house of thule. I die in the grounds to 3 mobs often. Being able to waste a bunch of light light blues and greens gave me something to do those times I can't get a group (plenty of times since I can't split pull or pet tank) and really made me happy about my class again. I don't think it needs to be snatched away. I kill 30 mobs at once, maybe once an hour. then i kill one at a time like everyone else. I don't see how this is bad.

    I really liked your post tho, im bias, but yeah. good post.
    Runzwith likes this.
  6. Deloehne Augur

    I've just spent two weeks killing in Convorteum and can probably pull my logs on this if you really need me to prove the following, but your 100 mob estimate is off by an order of magnitude.

    I was leveling up two evolving items and occasionally sharing experience with a FTP bard ( then a Sliver bard, and now a Gold bard, btw) and on a long day I would burn Glyph of ??? reward thee or four times. On 1/30, which was a long day, I killed 567 light blues over the course of many hours, so my WAG is that I was getting an AA every 7.5 kills give or take. Averaging in down time for buffs, breaks, chores and whatever, it was about 1.5 kills a minute or 5 minutes for an AA.

    I was getting, on average, about 1% for my evolving item every 3.5 kills, or 1.5 levels on a normal day or 2 on a long day.

    I doubt anyone thinks this is a stellar performance (although the bard looks good in T9 armor and were there a Hunter achievement for the zone I'd be all over it) but it is not as bad as an AA per hundred kills.
  7. Zaph Augur

    Well, 48 pages in, I wonder if the feedback given matches what you wanted.

    I can only really speak to the Nerfed ability of my class, headshot.

    It used to proc from a AE spell, it got nerfed,

    it used to be useful to swarm kill, it no longer is.

    and now you want to nerf it again down to virtually nothing.

    Perhaps im in a minority here, but the nerf wont affect me in the slightest - however, I see it as a tool for clearing weaker mobs, not xping/

    What ild like to see, is a ability toggle, on or off.
    it still proc from aeing, but anything killed by it doesnt give xp.


    To nerf it down to 1 every 2 mins or whatever, why keep it in game at all, leave it alone, or totally remove it.

    And while you are at it, refund all the headshot AA, as they are not ever going to be used.

    P.S. This is a GAME, to ENJOY.
    48 pages of happy people all enjoying this announcement?

    BRING BACK THE BFG
  8. Zalamack New Member

    Better AA idea: Create a new server where people are autogranted their AAs at the proposed levels in the proposed way. Then all the skilled, long-term, dedicated players know who and where to avoid. Leave the rest of the servers alone.
  9. deadone New Member

    I have read through the majority of the posts and it seems most people are upset about people being given AA. The question I have for those people are how many of you used some advantage to get the AA versus just normally grouping? Meaning beam pulls, hs, swarm, assassinate etc. If you participated in any of these methods if we removed these from your AA would it be more or less than the free AA they are trying to give out? If the same or more than your argument is moot. If substantially less you have a reason to be upset.

    The performance of the a player will go up with the additional AA will go up regardless of their natural ability because they will survive a bit longer. That is actually an advantage for perspective groups because the person should be able to help the group in better and more efficient ways.

    How many times a day do you see people asking others to plevel them in either levels or AA's? It seems pretty ridiculous.

    I do think it would be more advisable to just make AA a bit quicker to earn versus just giving them away. However, I am not as upset with this change as the nerfs.

    The nerfs are overreaching and a bit too extensive. The Mage nerf needs to happen and even being able to target 12 mobs is much better than the proposed nerfs to the other classes. The other classes have to kill mobs that are light blue to them and not level 100. The only class beyond the Mage that seems annoying is the SK because the SK takes away mobs others can kill in hotzones and trains people. If the sk would do this in instanced zones most people just would not care. The proposed nerfs against the SK makes them unplayable because of the impact it has on all facets of the game. Maybe limit how many mobs they can have at once to survive like 6-10. The Sk would not be impacted in regards to raids or having a decent pull either.

    The nerfs to Rangers, Rogues is ridiculous. I understand the developers idea was to strengthen the ability but make it occur less often. However, the amount proposed makes it too limited. Being limited to humanoid in and of itself is quite limiting. There aren't many areas they can use these skills. The Berserker on the other hand could be limited to a specific type of mob, preferably something different so there aren't three classes trying to use their ability on the same mobs.

    Without the ability to use hs or assassinate it would take a level 100 a substantial amount of time to kill a LB or blue mob. Where other classes killing the same mob without a special ability can do it faster. So in essence, the developers are promoting stronger classes and weakening the weaker classes even more. Even look at dps in raids there are classes that far exceed others but they are not losing anything in regards to that. Wizards kill all other classes in damage.

    Each class wants to have an ability that makes it special when just playing in general. As long as it does not impact other people by lagging out the zone I really do not care.

    The nerfs to the classes need to be examined more thoroughly as to how it will impact the over all game. If the developers are going to take away the special abilities they should give something back at the same time that makes the class more enjoyable to play.
    Leeroy Jenkins and Puligimist like this.
  10. SoroxDrinal Elder

    I will be cancelling my 4 gold accounts when you go live with auto-granting AAs.

    My suggestion is:
    Increase low AA bonus up to 6000 AAs.
    Set AA banked limit to 100 AA for all levels. (Currently level 92 is 50 AA cap, lower levels is 30 AA cap).
    Increase each daily mission to 100 AA max for 0 AA total (any mission, level 60/65/70, whatever).
    People would have to play their character to earn the AAs and spend them however they want.
    You would easily reach 6000 AAs in a single month. (Multiple missions giving up to 100 AA each).

    Instead, people are going to pay you a one time fee to get free AAs then return to F2P. And for that one month fee, you are going to lose some permanent players. I guess you believe more people will 6 box and pay you one time fees to run around with 6 toons each having 4000 AAs each. So from the player perspective, I can spend $15 for 4K AAs. Power leveling indeed.

    The fun of EQ was the journey. You are trying to kill the journey. XP is silly easy to get now. Why make it easier?

    Regardless, it won't be my problem as I will be heading for the exit...
    Sorox of Drinal, player since 04/1999 across MANY different accounts.
    beryon and Leeroy Jenkins like this.
  11. Nightmares Augur

    Nice middle ground, I would like to see this idea expanded on
  12. Leaben New Member

    My advice: Don't kill the fun. Leave Rangers, SKs, Rogues, Zerkers and Clerics alone. Drop the auto AA grant idea. Remove or change upper end beam spells. Possibly disable them unless you are in a instance. Make instances FOR swarming, FOR beaming. Optimize pathing if possible to reduce CPU load as some of your members have suggested. If CPU load is still hurting your bottom line after limiting mass killing to instances, pass on the additional cost to players.

    People enjoy doing these activities and will pay you for them. Make people pay SC to swarm or beam.

    Change the game so other peoples fun doesn't ruin the fun for everyone, but don't break the game mechanics of 1/2 your classes. If it is a resource issue, where you have the entire team working on EQN and don't have the proper time to address these issues; disable or remove the beam spells.

    It gets a little laggy with larger SK pulls or multiple SKs in the zone pulling, but never as bad as mages and even then it is only mildly annoying. I have never seen any lag with any of the other classes that are included in these changes. Mages have been expecting this for a while now and I think everyone would be happy if that was the only change.

    I think the auto AA grant would be an good strategy to introduce around the time EQN is released to encourage your customers to try new products. It seems like a good idea in theory and I agree you needed to give the players something to offset this, but I am afraid that this will be too many changes for too many people and so it will not go as you were hoping. Will see what the future holds. EQ Forever.
    Puligimist likes this.
  13. menown Augur

    "I have read through the majority of the posts and it seems most people are upset about people being given AA. The question I have for those people are how many of you used some advantage to get the AA versus just normally grouping? Meaning beam pulls, hs, swarm, assassinate etc. If you participated in any of these methods if we removed these from your AA would it be more or less than the free AA they are trying to give out? If the same or more than your argument is moot. If substantially less you have a reason to be upset."

    I agree with this. If players wanted to say that they earned their AA's then why don't we take away the AA's that they earned through the AA exp curve, hotzones, potions, whatever. That is how the people who stuck to this game earned them.
  14. Youou New Member

    I worked too hard for all my exp and AAs don't change things now PLEASE. I see nothing wrong with the way things are now, and if you are worried about new char catching up with higher lvls, that's not really a prob in the game. I seen a char that was lvl 1 get up to lvl 100 with over 3k AAs in less then 3 weeks, and I hear people saying they can do this even faster then that.

    Swarm pulls/beam Pulls are no different then a AEO group if you ask me. It's all game strategy, and it seems that all classes have a special ability they can do at higher lvls.

    I think if you want to give out free AAs let it be as a reward like a vet reward, or only giving to people that have maxed out one of there toons. ;)
  15. Syanu New Member

    Stoping an SK from swarming is just as simple as making MC only proc off dark blue mobs or just remove MC, leave the repo taps alone.

    As for 4k AAs, break it up into 500AA /claims tied to an account

    (Note on new member, i'm the same Syanu the correctly predicted what the OoW pet should be to catch up)
    Leeroy Jenkins likes this.
  16. Havokk New Member

    I do like this idea, my only thought in the negative would be, is this for players who are trying to get "up to snuff" or for peoples alts? I would much rather simply have more ways for people to get AA's than to see them given away because someone has a higher level character. I think that awarding people based on their achievements is one way to do this. We need ways other than "grinding" to get AA's, using achievements works entirely and is already a system that is in place, simply add AA rewards to the achievements.
  17. tamar New Member

    I hope the free aa will at least be optional. I love goofing around on my alts at lvl 80 85 etc in lopping and other lower zones, working on augs in ashengate etc, if giving free aa then u will be max aa at that lvl removing that option. This sucks, speed up aa dont just make it inpossible to play low lvl aaing. Not everyone wants go straight to 100 etc
    Brittney likes this.
  18. twister500 New Member

    you know what I have though about it... instead of doing it to all of us why dont u make a cheaters sever so they dont really have to put effort into the game and let them swarm and every thing they want on that server and when it crashes make them wait for it to come back up...
  19. Puligimist New Member

    There is an idea! If it works: don't fix it! o_O
    Brittney likes this.
  20. Snowman Augur

    Maybe instead of giving away all the AA's just increase the bonus from 4000 too 7000 or even 8000 AA's and if PLing is such a concern change the dailies to have a 10 hour time limit so you can do dailies twice a day - this would be helpful and in getting people leveled up and earning AA's as the daily missions are fairly easy - once you are 90 you could get 200 AA's a day just bye doing the 2 missions twice a day which would be 6000 AA's in 30 days
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