Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

4k AA's doesn't even buy 3k AA's these days....... Vinnie's Dad....

This whole bit with the AA grant per level...is funny. The reactions of people to it. I get where people are coming from, but then again it depends on how you view AA. You can view it as THE pursuit. As in you see it as the ends and grinding is the means. Or people can see AA as a tool that is used to do what you want to do in game, comes as a by product of adventuring and gearing characters via camping or doing instances for a particular chest item etc and so forth. Its a means to an ends.

When I log on, it is to do X adventure or camp X item. The AA just comes. AA is so easy to get just by playing the game. Now it just gets glyphed away but I still keep on logging on to spend time with my fellowship and do what they do.

The only real world thing I can compare it to is when you gear and AA up a character, its like building a race car. You start off with a basket case and bring it to life when you build the engine and tune it, tweak the chassis and drive train. Eventually, the car is finished enough where you can take it to the track, and that is where the real game begins. Then it is a matter of honing skills and doing every little nuance that much better to squeeze just a little bit more out of the car and the driver. Be it killing mobs faster or topping a parser. Surviving a very tricky bout or AE rampage and so on. Keeping a tank healed as well as a group. Just going after AA alone is like building the race car and then deciding to just putt around to the grocery store, never opening 'er up and seeing what she can do.

Some other dude can buy a crate motor and bolt it up to their car instead of building their own engine or even buy a car that is almost complete, but they still don't actually play the game until they take it to the track. Building the car is great fun, don't get me wrong, but it is truly fantastic when you see what it can do.

I am sure someone will call me a moron, but it doesn't matter how your car gets built. When you take it to the track, that is where the metrics are based and you learn what it takes to win.

Based on the responses from the Devs and tone, I don't see anything changing. Is it possible to implement the aa gift first and the nerf after so that I can start playing my alts sooner?

Ruven

Granting these AA's means you can start playing the game around level 80.
1-80 becomes an inconvenience and play style for everybody becomes pure race. This means very few gold subscribers have an interest in lvl 60-80 gear, they're just not going to be wearing it long enough to make it worth buying. However, there should be more 80-100 players so that gear should flood the /baz driving prices way down. Should making buying krono from /baz profits alot more challenging.
We can still make large amounts of plat by PL'ing. The nerfs suggested do not eliminate the swarming of a zone, It's still possible to provide a PL service just not anymore for some classes.
So you should be making less plat from the /baz, you still have the problems caused by swarming and you should see less people able to pay for their subs using krono.
I fail to see the advantages of these changes.
You may as well eliminate the first 16 expansions altogether and we'll all start at level 80, that worked so well on Mayong.

"Everquest...our world just got smaller"

I believe that extensions to the cap can be bought from the station store for silver accts.

First, I like the idea that the AA thing is an option. I will admit, some of my alts, I probably wouldn't mind the freebies (they're alts for a reason).

On the subject of Headshot, Anatomy (rogues), and Decapitation (Bers), SK nerfs, Mage/Wizard, the reason that was presented was that it was causing too much of a strain/lag and was disruptive to other players. Instead of nerfing all these classes and ultimately breaking something (I'm thinking of the whole Bard nerf years ago...), why not simply limit the number of "adds" you can pull. (i.e. the amount of aggro you can pull at a time). Say 6 or so. Anything more than that wanders off. Sure, the big pullers will be mad but hey, that was the idea. This would also help with a lot of "KS'ing", be it intentional or unintentional (you've got 6, try to get greedy, and nothing happens).

There's my two cents.

Two questions.

First, is there any list somewhere of exactly which AAs would be effectively auto-granted? I'd like to know so I'm not dumping points into them.

Second, are we going to be refunded the points we have already spent so that we can spend them on other, not-auto-granted AAs?

could the devs please let us know how many AA are available by class, that are purchasable by players before lv 85 than wont be auto granted anyway when lv 85?

trying to figure out if any alt is worth starting and sinking any aa into at all before that level. thanks

What have nots? A merc costs a tiny amount and can plvl a toon to 75-80 easily, it just will take a week or 3 and not be done in a day. At that point daily tasks and other tasks grant 30 AA per completion letting it take days or a few weeks to be completely up to speed if you buy the correct AAs and not choose to not grind away every AA even if it does nothing. Or follow thru with every task in older zones. If people choose to do that instead again they really are not missing anything as they are playing the game for what it is and endless enjoyable game of progression. Not a game of grant me an end game or 50% filled out character for me to be forced into current content which is laughable as of late because time is spent bleeding people for their last dime rather than making a solid game like all that sub 85 content is.

for the 1st qustion its all aa up to UF. meaning you get all lines of each aa untill you get to the level of the aa that starts in HOT.

I looked and I dont see anything that raises the aa cap in the /market but I could have missed them.

Was already answered in other thread yesterday that they would keep all functionality of the granted AA - but would just not be able to earn more AA as they would be above cap - As per my answer to your other post - silver accounts can purchase AA cap increases from the station store anyway as far as I am aware .

All of that when a simple no questions asked 3 day suspension on any group exploiting the lag would have sufficed. Isn't that what we pay subscription fees for? Safe and policed servers. Instead you're rewarding the few exploiters, inviting them to continue in any way that they can find to exploit, and carpet nerf bombing the masses of players who've been following the rules. The clear message is, "Get it while you can next time." I've never done any form of swarm kiting. Like many gamers, most I hope, I prefer the challenges of game play over the crutches of cheesy exploits. The realization of game accomplishments is the goal of the game. The comparison of my accomplishments vs. yours is the competitive side of these games. Which brings us to this ridiculous AA giveaway. That's one less accomplishment to compare and one more step towards EQ evolving into a single player game. Though honestly we're probably already there. Anyone with 3 accounts and the coordination to press alt and tab at the same time can master the entire group game. I digress...

TLDR version: I don't like it. Thanks.

Regarding the bolded portion (emphasis mine)

Is that feedback from FtP, Silver or Gold accounts?

"...enormous mountain"? While I am not privy to the data, you assuredly are. Exactly what is the mean time taken these days by a character to go from level 1 to 85? What is the mean time taken these days for a character (Gold account) to reach 4000 AA's? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?

I will mention two examples of which I am personally aware.

1: A returning player and three of his friends returned to the game three months ago, having been on hiatus for years! All of them at level 65 with less than 100AA's each. ALL of them are now level 88 with 2750+ AA's each and they play on average less than 2hrs per evening. (Gold accounts all)

2. Another friend created two brand new characters, one a shadowknight, one a shaman (Yes, he two boxes) and, in less than 5 months, EACH of those characters is now mid-80's with 2500+ AA's each, playing on average between 3 and 4 hours per evening and a bit more weekends (One gold, one silver account - he bought the AA upgrade things)

What was that again about an "enormous mountain"?

Personally I would prefer this to what is about to roll out.

Nope that does not fix it. Well it does if you think handing out AA like candy is the way to go. An then it only patches over some of the great giveaway / nerf fest that is upon us. Sure it makes a paying customer get something. For doing nothing but paying a sub fee. Rewarding loyalty is a fine thing. This is not a reward.

No fun in this whole thing.Except for those who want something for nothing. An they never stay around as customers. Game was fun. Finally has some balance.Sure it needed a tweet here an there. But throwing the loyal players out for potential "new" players is desperation. All of the worth I felt earned for my character will be bankrupt. An what goodwill SOE finally earned is now spent, an running a deficit.

Why not just make it when starting a new character a check box to click to level 100 as well ? Seems as sensible as giving away tons of AA just because. Oh yeah those xp potion sales! Do the Devs think the players who spent money on xp potions will like this? Really?

You know after playing this game for almost 15 years now I honestly feel a little shafted like most of the players that have been around with me. Yet at the same time I understand why SOE must do this to over come this hurdle. Due to my profession I had to take breaks at 7 month chucks at times and never have been able to over come the time i lost in the aa grind. Yet my skill and knowledge helped me stay fairly well geared and in an outstanding guild. Now while I look to get very little out of this boost personally at the moment I see where they are trying to go. I just hope that they would be smart enough to give the players something to compensate for the aa's they spent in the granted levels to allow them to remain where they where before the noob infestation of highly aa'd high exp low skill players infest us. Regardless I made a determination to go until this gravy train ended and the server or be died first. Long gone is the days I cherished in EQ. This game and its customer relations is meant for tough players cause everyone is having tough times.

lol That's clearly an enormous mountain example! How do you NOT realize that? Both instances showed MONTHS to get to content that's almost FOUR expansions old. And that's the quick stuff. It takes at least 10 times as long to level from 90-100 as it does to level from 1-90. Not to mention the almost complete dead stop of AA after 4k (obviously not literally). So you're saying it's not daunting/intimidating to have to spend a few hours a day for 6 months just to catch up to current content? And that's if new content isn't released during that time? Come on....get real man.

Been with this game since 1999. I have played a cleric since that first day as well.

I have stuck around all this time.... yearly subs... 4 of them between my husband and myself.

Our Mains? Cleric and Warrior.

Que... Mercenaries...

Destroy Cleric and Warrior Classes...as people liked the mercenaries.

I did not complain... I adapted to the situation. Purchased 2 more accounts so we could box... and created a few other classes....

With jobs, kids, deployments and life in general... there is not much time to group. So in comes max trade skills to cover everything we needed as players...

Do not really have time to play together in a group, let alone group with others... so I gear my cleric so she can solo or pull 5-10 light blue cons...

Now you take that away from my main character as well?

I used those spells to also help my brother-in-law, who happen to come back to EQ...

I rarely see real clerics around the game because most of them quit after the whole Mercenary thing...

Now you hit us hard with the nerf stick... for what?

To force us to group?

13 years... 4 paying gold accounts....we actually stuck around when people headed off to WoW, DAOC, RIFT, Vanguard, and EQ2.

Oh we love the game and will not be leaving... but will definitely rethink the 400+ bucks coming due on 4 accounts.

Free to play? Sure why not.... or the very least we could get the silver tag on them...

To heck with all that hard work getting keys and flags... progression and AA's....

Very disappointed...

Exactly. Considering the lack of understanding as to how the original changes would break SK tanking I question if they even get what they're doing. We'll literally get to do a few hundred thousand extra damage to alarans in SL and a handful of mobs in EW/Kael. Congrats, way to take something that was useful into a crappy gimmick that works in 3 zones.