Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

ok, So something has been removed from the SK, that drastically takes away from what we can do normally. Fleh.

As someone that helps lead raids from time to time, I can tell you that if it wasn't for my obvious bias (I'm a sk) and the SK's in my guild are exceptionally talented players I wouldn't put a SK in over a paladin.

A SK is like a 4 out of need on raids. Right behind Mage pets.



Phyros
Inverse Logic Guild Leader.

With the revisions to the plan I can say that I do support this more than I did initially, but really am only feeling screwed by one aspect. I agree with all the points you have made Piestro in regards to the AA hill that seems impassable at first. The server load due to beaming should have been addressed long ago in my opinion, if nothing else to shut down the spamming of WTB beams in general. My complaint/concern/question to you, Piestro, is why can there be no reward in any way for those of us on multiple toons have already ground out all those AAs?? Hours and hours that you don't want the newcomers to have to spend---can the developers really not put your heads together on how to give some kind of legit reward for those of us that did it--before the bonus. You would most likely shut up MOST of the remaining people on the AA granting topic if there were just a way to reward the people that already did it. Other that that issue, with the current revisions to the plans your on the right track. Thanks for the hard work guys just make sure to not "dumb it down" too much. The challenge keeps it fun and don't forget the value of a good session of Named camping in the next session---some of us feel that's getting lost.

K this is better, but still feel it could be a disaster in a group setting, MC only procs on the death of a mob, and not just the death, but the Death blow I as a SK deal, counter on that is fine, keeps me from swarming because multiple mobs will eat the counter up way fast.

Your problem of swarming is solved there.

Counter on epic which already has a short life is pretty crappy considering I'm not raid geared nor tend to play with others as I have weird play times it means now I have to be able to kill a mob not only in less than a minute and a half but also try to kill it before it hits me x amount of times.

Be interesting to see what the counter will be, hopefully high enough to last x2 mobs swings x 1.5 minutes or x 3 mobs swings x 1.5 minutes because otherwise it's going to make SK's ok as a starting player in a tanking situation then need the backup to step in and finish after the SK dies type of deal.

As a side note cudo's to you guys for being able to sit here and read all this stuff, first time I have ever had the will or whatever you want to call it to follow a post so religiously and I tell ya, I spent the last 7 hrs on the last thread falling asleep waking up reading falling asleep waking up reading ect. ect. I hope sony pays for naps because god knows if I had your job they'd be paying me for plenty of them. LOL.

Glad you all are listening though really appreciate it. Thanks.

not really looking for an excuse to quit here, but you are making it hard for me to justify playing this game if the changes go live. Was having a great time until the moment i ran into the "February patch changes" thread.

i spent the past ~3 weeks leveling and AAing my ranger, recently subscribed after gaining 700 AAs and hitting the 1k cap, then gained another 400 after subscribing for a 3 month set less then a week ago.

if i had known this crap would happen i would wait, sub gold for a single month, and then probably burnout because i know i would have to grind like mad to first level enough to pass the current freebies, then far more to grind out marginal AA upgrades that would just be given for free by waiting another year or two.

Whats the point in playing, just stop in every 3-5 years, sub for a month and burnout again because any feeling of accomplishment outside raiding is gone because its all dumped in my lap for free.

This is not even getting into the problems of people already barely knowing their class, i ran into a fellow 80 ranger that didn't know what Arc of Arrows/Weaponshield where FFS. It will get far worse when you dump 20 different clickable AAs in their laps, because they don't need to read the descriptions before acquiring them.

Imagine grouping with a warrior that had no discs, or had no idea what all the ones he has does so he just ignores them and autoattacks and taunts.

If you want to remove some of the power gap simply massively reduce the cost of the AAs you want people to get easily. make all the proposed "free" AAs from content more than 4 expansions old into 1AA per rank, DONE. Now people still have to read the AAs and earn them but they can quickly catch up to the power of a considerably older player and not piss off the vets nearly as bad. The vets can then finish the crappy AAs that give miniscule gains per rank for cheap(like say planar stat cap/innate __) and the lower levels/new guys can easily get all their required AAs because they only cost 1 per rank till they hit more recently added ranks. It would cut the number of needed AAs to become current by something like 80%

*First and foremost i value a real player community, balance, and challenges to overcome together.*

~~PATCH THOUGHTS~~
1) Over all I believe this to be a wise choice for EQ. "Swarming" was hard rooted in giving fast gains and allowing players to skip content that was designed into your journey on purpose (via swarming or getting swarmed for).

2) I agree with an earlier post regarding wizard recourse effects on beams being removed. In the realm of nuking, a wizard should never fall short of the powerful pet wielding mage class by damage or recourse. It's simply a matter of specializations. What each class is meant for. Maybe swap those recourse effects over to mage to give em a taste of the other side eh? /grin

3) Speed killing proc rates reduced for HS/ Decap/ Assassinate -- fall under the same logic as massing/swarming. Removing this mechanic and allowing it to bleed into the upper levels gives it a use in end-game content without allowing it to completely dominate (to the point of imbalance) up to a particular point then vanish. (spam kill decapping in the grounds until you reach lvl 100 on you and your boxes.. for shame sir, i shall meet and party with you in the valley very soon i think ;] )

4) The AA freebie is a mediocre price to pay in the general balancing of this patch. I do not like it, given my hard efforts to attain AA's, but i can somewhat understand the reasoning.

~~~~~ Sneak peak at some additional (patch unrelated) thoughts ~~~~~~~~
1) Mercenaries out-power real players for much of the game (especially early on).
2) Boxing is (in my opinion) damaging to the game community.

I love seeing all these posts of people saying they will be leaving....please don't let the door hit you on the way out; thumbs up to you Sony for giving an incentive to give this game some new life again hopefully by giving the AA modifier, most of these are so mind numbing to grind out and makes new/returning players who us veteran players SHOULD be helping out want to actually give this game a try. in the 14 years I've been playing i see so many players complaining(almost on a daily basis) about not being to find a group or being forced to box.

I have a feeling that SOE does not appreciate the whole 'PL for money' business. They are already going to take over that market with Heroic Chars. And the number of PL'ers is too small to worry about. Those people are also very unlikely to quit EQ anyway.

how will they get into trouble with 30? I assume that's the part you mean. 30 mobs at least on my mage in someplace like even beasts domain would eat him. and hes not a small mage. over 6k aa ect. I do understand the need to nerf beaming, but not the need to go as drasticly as you have. when it comes to the aa part, its still years of grind wasted now though. im well beyond the aa exp boost but the time I spent soloing single blue mobs for the levels and aa's is now just lost.

I know this may be a bit off-topic, but if you are auto-granting Dire Charm anyway, increase the level cap. Who seriously needs/uses a charm that caps on level 46 mobs?

Lol Shultzzzzzzz!!!

There is only one time this is going to go live, so there is only really one time this is going to effect characters with existing AA. Everyone else, from that point forward that gets AA from this will do so organically with the new system.

For this one time shot, perhaps you could

Convert the AA to back to XP at some kind of rate?
or
Give people some free AA refund, but not 1:1, perhaps 20 to 1?
or
Give people a XP bonus potion for every X AA they have on the books?

It doesn't have to be a full 1:1 refund to be some kind of return of time/value.

1. Thank you for not including the tradeskill mastery AAs and spell casting subtlety to the list of auto-granted AAs. However those are not the only AAs that could be undesirable. Off the top of my head, enhanced forgetfulness has a greater chance to let mobs that are under mezz lock regenerate a large portion of health. This can be a problem when X number of mobs should die within a certain amount of time of the first one's death. Also, the clinging root line could make it more difficult to break root on a mob that was only meant to be rooted for a short time. I'm sure there are others that I don't know about or can't think of. With the proposed changes, my choices would be to either take the potentially harmfull AAs with the many great AA that I don't already have, or opt out of all auto-granted AA. Opting out wouldn't be too terrible, but I have some suggestions below.

2. I appreciate that some thought has gone into auto-granting AAs and the impact that would have on the AA experience bonus. You stated that opting in, especially at higher levels, would eat all bonus AA experience, so you might want to get your higher ranks of important AAs before opting in. I'm imagining a brand new character. In order to use your solution, that character would have to level to the appropriate level, gain AA experience the normal way, and buy the all of the prerequisite ranks of the AAs (those that could have been auto-granted) before they could purchase the higher ranks. Personally, I would be fine with having to do this, but I think it defeats the purpose of why you are planning on auto-granting AAs.

Possible Solutions:
With regard to 1 and 2, could you make a separate AA bank where auto-granted AA are placed, even if it contains the total number of AA needed to max AA to 4 expansions earlier than the current expansion. This new bank would only be spendable on ranks of AA that are 4 expansions out of date, currently Underfoot and earlier. But while the AA are sitting unspent in the separate bank, they don't affect the AA experience bonus. Once a character spends those AA, they go toward the Assigned and Total Spent counts, and they count toward decreasing the AA experience bonus.

This addresses point 1 because it allows people to choose if and when they receive AA that might have potential drawbacks. It also relieves you of having to guess which AA people might not want. Finally, it allows players to customize their own character while still allowing a jumping off point toward catching up.

This addresses point 2 because it allows players to quickly get the early ranks of the most important AA toward survivability and effectiveness so that they can level up and get highest ranks of those AAs while still under a somewhat decreased AA experience bonus and without feeling like they're wasting their time getting the early ranks that they could have gotten for free (Sorry for that long sentence). It also allows a player the ability to not waste their bonus AA experience on practically useless AAs, such as the innate statistics AAs. I realize that a person at least has the choice keep some experience bonus by opting in at a later time, but my proposal seems like a more winning and flexible solution.

An alternate solution to number 2 might be to decrease the cost of the early ranks of AAs so that when people opt in to get the AAs that they do want and need, they aren't as heavly penalized for the AA they are also getting which they may not want and, in some cases, do not need.

Of these 2 solutions, I prefer the first, since it addresses both of my concerns. It is also more flexible in that it puts more decision in the players' hands.

Thank you for reading and considering.

Piestro for those of us that have committed so much time to this game we need something to show for our dedication. Some of us have been here a very long time. I think the auto grant isnt a good idea but your going ahead with it anyway. Why not do what should have been done a long time ago. REDUCE the price of old aa. Everything 4 expansions back is reduced to a single aa point. With today's bonus up to 4k aa is very easy to get.

Yall inflated the price of aa to keep people busy and to continue to have something to do. I hate the idea of being given something for free in a game that I am trying to enjoy. Why not relist the 4 expansion and older aas as 1aa apiece and let people earn them and spend them like they want?
While you do that you can leave the current expansion aa at current prices like 15 to 18 or somtimes 25 to buy a rank. For one expansion back cut the price to 50% 2 expansions back 30% and 3 expansion back to 10% rounded up?

I think people would much rather this system instead of auto grant free victories. Your killing mass kill ablities so this will still take some time to achieve but its not FREE.

Please consider a mega reduced purchase system instead of the Auto Grant feature. Some of us was raise when hard work meant something. I know playing eq is not hard work but for the loyals here with many hundred days played on our toons it is still a valid commitment. I have always worked hard in my life and then come home to enjoy my time playing everquest. I was a soldier when I picked up the game in 04 and it has followed me home to being a farmer and and now a student again and a father and I always try to make time to play 30 minutes a day or if i can more. I have a sense of accomplishment in this game that has grown with me in my life and I hate the thought that it can be erased with just a click of a button. Your auto grant is friendly to new and returning players but very harse to those of us that have been loyal so long. Please respect us like we have respected SOE all these years.

Assassinate, Decapitation, and Headshot really need a few more tweaks.
I think this info below correct for each of the abilities as they exist right now.

Assassinate
AA Name: Anatomy
AA Ranks: 22
AA Levels: 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87, 89, 91, 93, 95
AA Cost/rank: 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 9, 12, 7, 9, 12, 9, 12, 10, 12, 15, 12, 15, 18
AA Total: 199
Max Target Level: 88
Valid Targets: Humanoids Only

Decapitation
AA Name: Decapitation
AA Ranks: 3
AA Levels: 91, 93, 95
AA Cost/rank: 9, 9, 9
AA Total: 27
Max Target Level: 88
Valid Targets: All Mob Types

Head Shot
AA Ranks: 22
AA Levels: 60, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87, 89, 90, 90, 90, 91, 20, 21, 22
AA Cost/rank: 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 9, 12, 7, 9, 12, 9, 12, 15, 3, 3, 3, 15, 18, 21
AA Total: 194
Max Target Level: 88
Valid Targets: Humanoids Only

Rogue: Highest Cost, Low proc chance(Backstabs only), Extremely limited mob types
Ranger: Slightly lower cost, High proc chance(Archery based), Relatively safe usage, Extremely limited mob types
Berserker: Cheapest by a ridiculous amount, High proc chance(melee based), works against all mob types in game

Why do Berserkers get the best version of this? Lowest Cost, most chances to proc, hits any and all mob types...
I understand that the abilities are all having the proc chances reduced so hopefully they will be equal in that regard(I somehow doubt this will be the case! see Gloomfalls Post).
"Any mobs in game" and "humanoids only" results in a MASSIVE difference in valid targets. The disparity between the abilities is only going to get worse once you extend this up to level 99 mobs... It needs to be changed!

Suggestions for improvements without any direct nerfs

Assassination
Valid Targets: Change to all Mob Types

Decapitation
AA Ranks: Add 19 additional ranks beginning at level 59 or 60. This will most likely increase the total AA cost by 170ish in exchange for added utility at lower levels (This should be mostly a non factor for existing Berserkers as they can have the low level ranks autogranted once the February patch goes live)

Head Shot
Valid Targets: Change to all Mob Types

Lol I'm just sitting back laughing at everyone crying we got nerfed in PoP no response like this how about fixing Staunch Recovery so it actually gives bards mana? I've only been asking for that since it came out.

The counters were also eaten by procs that couldn't be focused by the ability. And the effect scaled to nothing 5 levels ago. My epic's only use is to look pretty on the wall of my house.

The SK epic should still be an awesome and integral part of the class, assuming the number of hit counters is at least in the high hundreds.

I feel like the last one would be a fair compromise. Maybe a 50% experience bonus 30 minute duration potion for every 500 AA's or something to that effect? It wouldn't be game breaking and would go a long way to making people complaining about effort wasted happy.

I don't care personally, just trying to find a way for SoE to make some sort of compromise with all the people who are upset over the changes.

You can delve into their motives all you want, but all I have is just what I see with my own eyes on The Rathe. Perhaps it is applying an innocent veneer to a money grab or maybe its not. Either way, it gives further backing to the decision to do both and do them together. PLing is easy plat and that plat can be dumped into a Krono. People want AA and you as a PL'er don't mind not having to pay for your EQ sub with real world currency. That is a powerful motivational force for people to make swarm characters and further exacerbate the problem. Some people could even say that swarming is their "job" and why not. Supposedly you can make 15-20 bux an hour if you sell the plat on an auction site. Thats decent change in a sluggish economy where you need a bachelors degree just to get paid that much. Its against the EULA but that never stopped anyone. Krono has to be bought from SoE either way so they still get paid.

I am still of a belief that SoE isn't crazy about hardware being over taxed and zones being disrupted. That goes into not just the lag but people having their camps/adventuring disrupted by having their mobs taken or being killed when a swarm pull goes wrong. That should go beyond any financial motives. Allowing that kind of behavior to continue is bad for business.

Devs looking for an answer or direction on the auto-granting AA. While I do like the idea, and it really makes me want to spend more time on alts. I am a bit concerned on some of the AA's that will be auto-granted if I opt to. For example Innate abilities? Sure if I have 12k aa's with nothing to put them into, but granting those for someone who's say 100 with 2k aa's seems useless. I would like to open and discuss the possibility of giving the AA's to the players, and allowing them to spend them as they see fit. I would hate to get aa's that I know basically are useless, and ruin my bonus AA.

Thanks look forward to the reply.

Marginal upgrades? AAs up to UF are less than 1/2 of the total ranger list of AAs, and you're missing a TON of the important/good ones at that point. 85 and ~5k AAs is the start of your career as a ranger, not even close to done. You still have 4 expansions of work to do when you "resub" to burn out - that's no small order, no to mention the loads of other content that needs to be done to improve your character to the max from the point you're at now. You'll spend months grinding out Augs alone.