Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

When does the AA change roll out? Anyone know?

No, EQ is very solid financially. We've posted a number of times future expansions are in development, and one of our goals is to increase their size from CotF. I was simply addressing the business reality that we have to keep making money in the future if we want to keep making the games we all love.

I just cannot read through 95 pages on this thing... I haven't heard any mention of pvp in the pages I did read. Rangers can headshot humanoids 1 lvl under them. Does that mean a lvl 100 ranger can headshot a lvl 99 toon? ick.....

any dev able to respond to the Prophesy of Ro idea I suggested? it be worth mulling over at least

Interesting idea here. Make HS only work on Focused Storm of Arrows and Called Shot Line and not on autofire. Heck you could just make it work only on Focus Storm of Arrows line.

12 Second Recast = 5 Per minute = 40% chance to fire = 2 PPM

They've done said so, multiple times.

Gaining less is not the same as being penalized.

The real result is:

Character 1 probably has some non-granted AA already. Character 1 will gain whatever they missed in the granted AAs.
Character 2 has no AA. Character 2 will gain all granted AAs.

Character 1 ends up with granted AA + some non-granted AA.
Character 2 ends up with granted AA alone.
Neither character has an AA experience bonus anymore, due to being past the up-to-4k bonus.

It's very simple math.

to be fair to this claim. IF the majority of the sample size (IE forum posters) do not like something then the rest of the player base could indeed share the same feeling.

With that being said i think the updates are great; however you failed to fix some of these abused abilities long long ago. That's on your guys heads for allowing these things to be used as intended abilities for way to long. Had you fixed them before they started being abused and used by large numbers of people this part of the update would not have been an issue.

They plan on nerfing Shining Bastion as well

Many people seem to be upset about the number of AA that are proposed to be given away. 4k seems to be the common number used, so I'll stay with that.

I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't be upset that these AA are going to be given away, but I encourage you to consider the following:

A level 85 character that starts with 0 AA and is auto-granted 4000 AA is not the same as a level 95 (for instance) character who has just gotten their 4000th AA. The level 95 character, if they haven't spent their AA frivolously, is ahead, and not just because they have 10 extra levels. In terms of AA count, they are the same. But the level 95 character is going to have a much better selection of AA, thus being more powerful. The reason is that a large number of AA that the level 85 character is being gifted are used on AA that are either useless or very minor changes that, while somewhat nice, aren't really game-changing, and are therefore unnecessary.

Can you elaborate on this. It appears you're saying that due to the announcement of additional content that the remaining portion of CotF is in limbo. It has been reiterated that you folks are on a schedule and that is a very strict one but this comment leads me to believe the opposite.

I haven't even seen a rogue pulling small groups of mobs recently to assassinate, and we can only both kill the same mobs (yep 0 rogues) . Berserkers I have seen pull more 10-20 when defensive is up or more but only when they are paired with other classes that can allow them to stay alive. On normal pulls most I have seen is one beserker doing 6 at a time.

I guess none of us knows how representative of mass opinion the people who post are?
What strikes me is that so many people have bothered to make new posting accounts - me included, to talk about this issue.
I'm not actually a new forum member -I posted occasionally on the 'old' forums and I recognise a lot of names here from back then - they are also 'new' members.
In other words this is the first issue in however long that has stirred people up enough to come and post. People who are perhaps not natural forum inhabitants.
People who may have had a bit of a grumble about this or that, or, hey, even said nice things, but didn't find it important enough to come and express a view.

And now they do.
That must tell you something?

In his defense, a rogue only pulls a massive train when counterattack is up. You don't pull a massive train when your riposte disc is down. SK can pull non-stop.

Most rogues don't actually mass pull, hell, most rogues don't even know they can do that. It's horrible XP compared to a group.

I probably have 570 days played since starting in May 1999. I have spent countless hours getting aa.

1- if I'm not mistaken the AA count at underfoot is 7000 to 8000 aa if not more not 4000.
2-perfectly reasonable solutions to the aa grant have been offered countless times and still ignored.

He'll give a AA per kill till 7000 mobs. Change the aa curve to 7000. Make them work some at least.

If anyone tries to cry about it think about killing near a million mobs to simply XP 1 single item.

Burden of truth helm.
Defensive tear Aug in VOA
Shoulders in Cotf

Let's not even begin to talk about the millions of plat countless hours of crafting and 3 massive quest lines plus a premier t4 RoF raid to get a single aug.

None of these items are near game changing and take unreal amounts of time and teamwork yet you want to alter the entire game.

What kind of time and effort compensation are you going to grant people who earned 12500 aa like me?

Nothing right?

That's the point. You insult the effort and work of everyone that earned them by giving it away.

Not 1 thing I said is unrealistic but those who didn't want to spend the time will say I'm unrealistic.

The actual point of having a top not character is that I DID spend my time and earned it. Some who want every class maxed will love this because it's a joke now.

Dear development team,

What about people like myself who power level people I know I represent a minority of players who do so but a strong minority. I can’t speak for majority of others that do what I do but I do it to help people who can’t level up on their own because real life versus game life. These people dump tons of cash into the game via subs and krono purchases. Your goal is to alienate people in my opinion who have full time jobs, families, and real lives. Everquest is a very demanding game time wise and the wall for level is 80+ on regular xp meaning that normal xp is so slow that for a casual player that can’t log in every day and put 3 to 5 hours a day on the grind or quest have told me and I quote been playing since 2001 and the highest level character I have is level 80. This is a real reality that makes this hurdle like a mountain that non aa experience is way to slow even in hot zones how about a level 95 hot zone up to level 90 just isn’t enough. When I started eq a long time ago I never could imagine such a niche market like power leveling could have such and impact on player base but it does how does the development team address the impact on player base for people who pay to play the way they want to play soe gets money power leveler gets plat and kronos world is happy place this is not a I will quit if your this post but it is reality that u have yet to address eq depends on people like myself.

Dear Devs-- I am thrilled that finally you are doing something about the nonstop PL beamers/ swarmers, but in the case of mages, I have heard more than a few just say eh- we will still beam anyway. I am just wondering if you are considering adding to mage beams the same side effects that were added to wizard beams to prevent wizards from doing the very same thing that mages are doing now.. namely the stun/root/blind side effects that make it so beaming as in running in front of a group of mobs that cannot touch you and nuking them- is for wizards- impossible. Wizard AE abilities now depend solely upon the skill of the chanter, the healing abilities of the cleric, and the AE taunt abilities of whatever tank.. which I would say is the only way AE mass killing should work-- in direct risk of being killed.

Just saying..if you don't add the side effects it wont stop them.

Other than that I support your move to allow players to catch up more quickly but I do agree with others that it could have been couched by adding AAs in to the Hero's journey Achievs.. or... well anyway.

Will there be some kind of achievement or compensation or prize or ?? surprise for those who did the AAs the hard way?

Another question-- when will Achievements points actually be useful for anything? Will there ever be a way to spend them on something or are they just for bragging rights?

I asked you an honest question and you gave a BS answer.

Yes or No would have been adequate. If you have been reading this thread, people are believing this shift in the game is a run up for Heroic Characters. As in lets buy lots of power and forget actually playing the game for the most part. Now either they are correct, or they are just wearing a tinfoil hat and looking for space aliens and mind control waves where there aren't any. You ask for honest feedback? Well, we as the community gave you just that.

Now it is your turn, and to be frank, avoiding the issue serves more as confirmation than anything else. Everyone knows you all hate having your backs against the wall, but sometimes there is a need to dispense with the bull, and just be honest. You have not branched off to straight up lying yet, but avoidance is the gateway drug for that.

Unless you're in the library or kaesora library chances are you haven't seen many rogues assassinating at all in the first place. We were already restricted heavily where we could even do it.