Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

Rogues don't play the class to solo like paladins and SK can, it has always been a helpless class on it's own. Rogues are one of the worst solo classes and most rogues who roll the class, know this.

I think rogues are more annoyed at the idea that they can swarm, which they can't, or that they need to ve nerfed because they can solo, even though they're the worst solo class in EQ.

Assasinate is so useless, it's only fun to kill some light blues. It's stupid something fun just gets removed because other classes cause zone disruption.

I have never seen a rogue cause zone disruption.

So then raise the low AA boost some or even double it, whats it at currently 500% to 4k? Raise the cap from whatever it is to 6 or 7K. Any class only needs 3 or tops 4K well purchased AA to be viable at their role which can be ground out in a few weeks solo if they productively do so and purchase only what is really needed. Make it known that doing daily tasks and or a few underfoot tasks allows players to solo or box upwards of 200 AA a day with an hour or two of playtime. Scream it on the boards. Announce it on the pop up EQ screen when people log in. Put it in the MOTD for new players. So people don't waste their time playing old stuff that rather then embracing you guys keep sweeping under the rug. Don't erode the game from what it is or you will be losing just as many people as you are supposedly gaining except they will be saying eq is no longer eq its farmville where you can pay some short term cash to race ahead only to then get bored and move on. To which you can then react to 2 years to late to and say man we should have kept on our path that was working for 14 years. A niche game that stayed true to its roots but did slowly make the edges less rough. Start being PROACTIVE and not reactive 2 years or more behind the times. You then get the please me now types to possible buy multiple months of a gold sub before quitting as they have to work for some of it and you also don't alienate what EQ is. You also get all those they truely want to play a game of constant grinding to stay as they just had the mountain at least the initial part drastically reduced so they then can move on to farming a zillion other things higher up that they need. As again thats what the game is totally about and always has been.

How many subs have you lost because of CoTF? And its lack of AA, poor spells with little use or totally overpowered in some cases? No more locked zones and progression time sinks? No more everquest just paytowinquest.

Rogues have 4200 and change left after the giveaway. That info was posted in the other update thread, approx. page 18. It's not a 4k giveaway.

I think your numbers are high. I checked my logs for some evolving I was doing in Convorteum the other day, and this is the first 'long' string of HS procs that I found. This was produce by a GINA search of my logs from 2/1 to today for the string "fatal bow shot'

02/01/14 10:32:58 AMDeloehne performs a FATAL BOW SHOT!!
02/01/14 10:33:04 AMDeloehne performs a FATAL BOW SHOT!!
02/01/14 10:33:10 AMDeloehne performs a FATAL BOW SHOT!!
02/01/14 10:33:24 AMDeloehne performs a FATAL BOW SHOT!!
02/01/14 10:33:31 AMDeloehne performs a FATAL BOW SHOT!!
02/01/14 10:33:39 AMDeloehne performs a FATAL BOW SHOT!!
02/01/14 10:33:43 AMDeloehne performs a FATAL BOW SHOT!!
02/01/14 10:33:48 AMDeloehne performs a FATAL BOW SHOT!!
02/01/14 10:35:02 AMDeloehne performs a FATAL BOW SHOT!!
As you can see it's just over a minute long, and HS procced 9 times, or about once every tick. If you have data that support your claim, I'd like to see them.

Ah...ok thanks. Heh, not exactly "clearly stated" unless you go dig lol. That thread went from 2 pages to 100 while I was at work.

As it stands currently, the max number of AA's you can bank at lvl 100 is 70. At lower lvls, the number you can bank is lower. You'd still be hosed.

There are detrimental recourses on wizard beams because they have an instant cast time, not because they are beams. This was one of the tradeoffs to offset the benefit of the zero-second cast time. Note that wizards' instant single-target spells also have similar drawbacks and this is called out in their descriptions. Some examples below.

Flashfreeze: Your target is frozen solid instantly, causing @1 damage. This wild magic has a chance to feedback upon the caster.
Flashsear: Your target is consumed by a flashflare, causing @1 damage. This wild magic has a chance to feedback upon the caster.
Cloudburst Thunderbolt: Your target is blasted by a bolt of lightning from a suddenly appearing cloud, causing between #1 and @1 damage. This wild magic has a chance to feedback upon the caster.
Incinerating Beam: Calls forth a beam of solar energy that extends in front of the caster, inflicting #1 damage to up to 12 enemies within its area of effect. This wild magic has a chance to feedback upon the caster.
Frigid Beam: Emits a funnel of frost that extends in front of the caster, inflicting #1 damage to up to 12 enemies within its area of effect. This wild magic has a chance to feedback upon the caster.

Not really sure to be honest, but I worry more about my rogue. Quite often he uses his smokebombs and throwing daggers to pull, and he has procced assassinates with throwing before. Now that he will be able to do that on level 99 mobs, the potential is there for him to be turned into a fine red mist by breaking the mezz on his cute little skull traps.

Elidroth said: ↑
“Just to clarify something really quickly. When a player is auto-granted their AA, there is still a lot of work to be done. They are not being given everything. Not even close. There are a lot of AA still to earn. The per-class amounts before being capped AFTER auto-granting are as follows:

Warrior - 4341
Paladin - 5436
Shadowknight - 5110
Ranger - 5442
Cleric - 5077
Shaman - 5704
Druid - 5414
Beastlord - 5295
Monk - 4505
Rogue - 4245
Bard - 4675
Berserker - 3873
Necromancer - 5040
Wizard - 5796
Enchanter - 5648”

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Koneko said: ↑
“wheres magician?!”
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Wow.. I was typing too quickly I guess.

Magician - 5796
Wizard has 4394

Elidroth posted that in the other thread.

You may want to look Hatsee up on magelo.

That is true. I guess I have been too spoiled by having my bard do all my pulling for me. You could get your self a handy dandy Ring of Dissipation, Ghoulskin Shield or a Terror's Juju. I still like to use those if not for the fact that it avoids stuff going into summoning mode.

Wiz beams are 12 sec recast time. I thought that was the tradeoff of them being insta-cast. Mage beams not only don't have any recourses, they are also chain-castable.

I'm not a wizard CRT, but I think most wizards would agree with me on this: make our beams the same cast and recast time as mages, but remove the recourses. We totally don't need them to be insta-cast if we can chain them like mages do their beams. How about that?

You'll only get throwing assassinates from the rear arc, and there aren't enough humanoids to matter. They just need to refund our 199 AA and do away with it, because it's not worth having in this state. Make it harder for more rogues to AA their way up, see what happens to the already small population of rogues.

The only way I've ever caused a disruption on my rogue is by sneaking up on friends and scaring them lol

This is why I kind of wish that we had a bit more time to go over this to pick off the problems that are due to arise. I don't consider it that class defining because rogues had it in another form and zerkers also have it in another form, but with these changes it goes from 'the best' to the worst, although best is subjective here as it has lost power since VoA and we're not easily the kings of solo grinding, and really all we were kings of is getting lots of exp not downing anything worth bragging about.

Anyhow Elidroth did ask me to expound upon what I said earlier so as was stated they are all reading this thread. If I'm looking at this entire situation correctly then it's kind of a nerf to the class as a whole simply due to the chance to randomly proc it and get summoned to our death. But as of now the only way to get by that which I can see would be to change how it works fundamentally for rangers and then we're getting into complicating the entire process. I'm lost as to what the best solution is, a sure kill when it does proc would probably be 'best' however I'm not so sure.

Does anyone off hand know how much exp you get solo for a dark blue mob anyway? If we can argue that there is really going to be no real benefit to us having a sure kill move we may be able to get it. Unless others present reasonable alternatives it's all I have.

Make a new toon and buy a merc. Take it to a hot zone at or just above your level. Save the free xp potions or use a couple that a serious returnie would most likely buy until you get to level 40 or above. Play an hour a day and tell me now long it takes. You sorely underestimate how powerful a merc is from 1 -75 and the it works just fine but slower to 80 at which point that are back to grinding which they don't want to do anyway. 5 red, yellow or white con hotzone mobs at a time without a healer is a pretty fast plvl.

The real issue is most new players don't know to do this. Just like they don't realize that ignoring all that old content to instead do daily tasks or Underfoot tasks or purchased TA's grant them 30 AAs each. The biggest problem with this game both on the part of new players and the devs is a lack of knowledge as to whats actually going on in game until well after the fact. New players see wow this heros journey is great let me waste a week on this shiney armor that looks great and offers me some xp not realizing they are 1000 times better off using a merc to plvl themselves and just looting the defiant as it drops while leveling faster and getting way more AA for their time. They don't realize the old zone tasks the devs steer them to do via heros journey offer crap xp compared to daily tasks or by buying UF ta's.

Announce this crap and boost the low AA bonus and cap rather then making 20 bucks one time grant 4-7K aa for dinging level 85.

I am not a fan of the proposed solution to grant aas because it trivializes previous effort, the amount being given surpasses the efforts of people who have played regularly, and goes against the spirit of Everquest as a game where you earn your achievements. My proposal is rather than simply granting aas or level 85, adjust quest rewards from old zones to give a smoother, more in-game reasonable way to level up quickly.

It seems a shame to me that Sony seems hellbent to ignore almost all of the EQ expansions in favor of accelerating people to max level and 4k+ aas. Everquest is full of great content and most of it is ignored except when people visit for nostalgia or epics. Rather than let it rot, why not revitalize outdated zones with increased xp rewards for quests taken by level appropriate people and actually encourage people to revisit all the zones that made EQ the best MMO to date? Why bother having a rich history if you isolate the experience to the latest zones?

What is the rush to 4k aa for anyhow? I agree that innate stats and other similar aas are useless, but gaining core aas felt like a reward for spending the time playing the game. Post that point, barring special class aas, most of the aa gains are incremental cookie cutter baby steps like ca/cs ad nauseum--useful but not rewarding to spend hours getting.

Playing an instant 85 with 4-5k+ aas trivializes the enjoyment to be had learning your class, seeing the power curve ramp up as you try out new abilities in fresh zones. For veterans who have already reached 85 before, this HC option might be ok since they have done this all already. I think an achievement to unlock Heroic Characters might be a good tactic, maybe even a tier of them to unlock specific classes with the power classes like nec, monk and enchanter taking the longest to attain.

Putting so much exp gain in dailies hurts the game. Yes, it's a good quick daily fix of EQ...for 20 minutes. But it doesn't encourage grouping, exploration or learning anything except how to kill 5 specific mobs in easy pull zones. I'm all for dailies giving a shot of experience but 20+ aa for 5 minutes in zone is hard to defend for long term interest in the game.

For those of us still here in EQ, the game is partly about having something achievable and something rewarding for time spent. Some of us raid. But even more are interested in doing group content because it lets you play at your own pace and in your own time. Why do you want to rush people to the part of the game where the <Work in Progress> and <To Be Continued> signs are instead of immersing them in the world of Norrath? Maybe you're hoping once everyone is done with aas and levels in EQ they will move to EQ Next, but if SOE history continues to follow the same pattern, you really ought to cover your bases and keep EQ viable for the future.

It's sad that SOE has been quick to dismiss EQ throughout its history and tout new games (EQ2, Vanguard) which failed to capture our loyalty. People have been playing these toons for over a decade, I think that alone is proof of our investment in them. Dismissing or trivializing our time spent on making them special to us is an intangible you are destroying by offering instant toons that may have more aa than we ever earned.

It might be about the same as killing a yellow con with a group, only the group killed it much faster with less risk.

Hi all,
I figured I’d be the 900 pound ogre in the room and post something that I hope is completely different. I’m a long time player with 1 toon of every class except beast and bard and for the most part I solo or molo them rather than group them. What made Everquest great, in my opinion, was the huge range of ways people could customize their game play. There were those that liked to help others especially newbies, those who loved to buy and sell in person, those who liked to explore, those who liked to solo, those who liked to group, those who liked to hunt particular mobs or drops, those who liked to be the first to figure out quests, and on and on. Thus I believe it is wrong headed to limit the swarm kiting. It often takes great skill and preparation to do this. It can be very exciting as you try to survive bigger and bigger pulls. It creates a sense of mastery and promotes awe and a desire in others to get “uber” and emulate. If this is causing server lag then improve the servers. If this is ruining game play for others in the zone, don’t allow it in popular zones like hot zones. I would think it would be a simple mechanic for the developers to put something in for a hot zone like: “If mob count on puller/group greater or equal to 15 then puller group gets DT if they don’t zone before brief timer ends”. Trains have always been part of Everquest - when you become skilled or “uber” you can pull them on purpose.
I understand that a game with 100 levels and many thousands of AA can be a daunting prospect for returning or new players. I don’t think the answer is to give away thousands or AA or reduce the number of effective levels by starting characters at a level greater than one. This will be perceived by most veterans as violating the basic value of fairness and thus is guaranteed to anger many of them. It also reduces the complexity and majesty of the game. In order to really learn how to play your character you have to level it up from the beginning fairly slowly. I think that the real problem here is that new and returning players are far behind on the learning curve. Everquest is very complex and after all these years I am still learning things. I think that a solution to this problem is a greatly expanded tutorial system using all that largely idle older content. If the tutorials explicitly taught class skills important for the various levels in a quest format while granting items and experience new and returning players would feel they were making real progress learning and advancing in the game. It might even bring back the old days of experienced players hanging in those old zones helping newbies.

Over the years, Everquest has made many changes to itself. Some of these changes were good and some have reduced the number of different ways people could enjoy the game. I think the development team should review all past and proposed changes such as to maximize the diversity of enjoyment. Look to see which types have dwindled over the years and revive them. Think of new ways that people may enjoy Everquest and foster them.

This new patch will push players away so SOE will need to find 2 new for every 1 that quit. & pls tell me where these new players are coming from?MMORPG's are only goin dwn hill kids these days have consoles to play on. & just google f2p mmo & theres a huge list to choose from why would the few choose eq when this generation would rather have something with PvP that dont suck like EQ's does.The only new toons that are made are by those that already play or returning players & this patch is an obvious end game tactic to push more toward EQnext.The flood of new accts for sale on playerauctions is proof SOE messed up good this time.