Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

I think the auto granting AA is a good idea, but I do think an even larger bonus to AA gain, would be even better. Killing mobs and gaining exp fast really feeds the EQ addiction. I just think people would get more satisfaction gaining exp VERY fast and getting to 4000-5000 aa much faster than now with the current bonus, than just being auto granted it. Once the AA bonus stops, it really starts to feel like a grind. Why do you think people swarm?? Because it's fun to see the exp come pouring in, not trickle in.

I love seeing people say, OMG I worked so hard for this AA!! No you didn't you played EQ for that AA. That's the game people, the grind is basically what you do in the game, kill mobs for exp. Gearing up the toon is fun, but it is just there to help you kill mobs easier. I know it feels like work sometimes, but that's the game.

I couldn't imagine being a new person or starting a new toon and trying to get enough AA to be relevant in today's game. Remember, SWARMING and most POWER LEVELING is going away!! I used my SK to p level most of my alts up. I leveled a few the hard way, but you really NEED 2-3k aa for most classes to function like they are supposed to. Being lower level is fun the first 6 times, after that, I want to have my toons able to experience the new stuff, which is always for the highest level characters. If I want to play a rogue, I don't want to have to spend a year+ leveling up another toon. I want him at a certain AA/level so I can play him with the rest of my toons.

Then I hope you solicit for feedback in ways other than these forums...

Less than 5% of the players post on the forums. How exactly do you extrapolate that out to the majority of customers are upset, and want to quit?

Well maybe only 5% post .....but perhaps you might want to join general chat on some of the servers, I have found that when the conversation turn to the proposed changes it usually isn't very positive.

I'm upset proposals and I think I will stop posting because I don't know if I see a point.

Yeah? Well how about all that time me and my warrior buddy Zver (/wave if your still around in some form LOL) wasted trying to get our bodies out by the tower in Everfrost and getting ganked by Marter Icebear. No Necros or Clerics in Halas so we just had to lose lvls and exp. 3,000 AA's and full raid gear might be a partial recompense for the misery we endured. We had to work to get our gear back. Not like these damn freeloaders today.

They do! They took a poll 2 1/2 years ago asking about giving away AAs.... lol.

Increment: an increase or addition, especially one of a series on a fixed scale (Oxford Dictionary).

Not sure what you meant, but I know that the more the ranks advance the less each AA spent brings, otherwise we would be over 100% avoidance (the first three ranks in CA/CS give 10% avoidance).

If you meant incremental as in "not all at once", well, I still don't get your point

Does someone know what avoidance percentage is given by CA/CS with all underfoot ranks, and with all CotF ranks?

You're not looking in the right spots, then . Zerkers and Rogues both pull plenty more than that. They can pull just as many as Mages do when the beam kite by lagging the zone. I know this because I've done it, and I've seen others do it. It's very tricky to time it correctly, and there is a learning curve, but it's definitely doable.

poweleveling exsisted before headshot decap and assiniate and will exsist after but power leveling will only be for raid geared peoples

Wow, that took forever for me to get caught up on this thread. I would just like to say that all in all I'm actually very pleased with what I see so far on this change. The MOST important fact is that people have the OPTION if they want to turn off the auto grant if they want to earn AAs the hard way, so I really don't see the problem. I for one have been playing since as early as 1999 before Kunark and yes I will admit there was a time where I was just as hardcore as many in this thread about never giving things for free, but as I've gotten older with a full time job, 2 kids, house, and all that other stuff it's been increasingly difficult to try to keep up on the curve.

This is coming from someone who already knows where everything is, what gear to go after, what AA paths to take first, etc, etc and I still end up getting burnt out by the huge mountain higher than the clouds of AAs I need to overcome, especially when I consider my alts that I'd love to level up. This AA grant change actually gets me SUPER excited to be able to play alts, and I also see that there's STILL thousands of AAs to get for each class even with all AAs granted up to 4 expansions ago. I know this will probably just get buried in the rest, but I want to say to the devs that I absolutely love this change, and it's even had many of my old friends who just gave up on eq in the past as well talk about upping their accounts to gold again so we can all level up together and be able to function in current content.

Very well done, and I honestly don't see any changes that need to be made to the AA grant system as you currently have it set up.

In regards to the swarming nerfs and whatnot, it's unfortunate but I do understand why it needs to be done. The concerns I did originally have already seem to be resolved (like SK lifetaps, etc) so just want to say wonderful work on listening to and compromising with the players on this.

Also want to say thank you to Piestro personally for taking so much of your time seemingly even outside of your normal work hours to continue to diligently respond to players in this and the previous thread. You're kind of a machine lol... I can't say I'd have that kind of dedication if I were in your shoes.

And for anyone that tries to call me a kiss-, I've spent plenty of times PO'd at dev changes and been plenty vocal in the past about things that I didn't like whether it be in PM's straight to devs or in forum posts, but the difference this time is that the changes are made with a much stronger effort in listening to feedback (of course not "always" agreeing as always happens or nothing would ever get done) and coming up with compromises (like on/off switch to give people the option to use AA grant or not which now that the option is given, I have no idea why people are still pissed off since they can have their cake and eat it too now).

Oh geez I read through almost 30 pages before I got overwhelmed. It was a post you wrote that seem to say doing something quick to have the granted AA would be the same as a checkbox , because they have the same results? Or that is what I took from what I read and misunderstand? If so please explain?

I am a level 92 Rogue with 5.2K AA's
You know I have been watching all this, and said er. What you have said, and what I have seen do not make Sense.
So I decided to test you. I went to Freerot. pulled about 30 lizardmen, and killed all of them.. Well they were all grey. 3 of those where from Assassinate with a healer the rest were from BS, and normal dps.I then did it without healer, and I killed about 30 with 4 Assassinate. Sorry I really didnt count total dead just total Assassinate. Next I went to OCV to the temple. Pulled the whole outside of the temple with healer. Total dead from Assassinate 3. Again without healer 4, Oh btw was knock down to 8% health before i hit escape. Went to FoS. Lt Blue killed 12 Assassinated 3 then died.
Just what are folks trying to tell me? Er is there something I am missing??? Some AA I missed , or are you just full of BS? I just want to know where you get this garbage? Why you want to nerf what little I have? I just don't understand what you are saying!

Thank you for your response. I do not expect you to treat any poster different just because of tenure. In fact, out of all of the posts that I have made in this thread, this is one of the only ones I was not expecting you to respond to, because it was not directed at you. This post was in response to the previous post before it.

I am glad that you take our feedback seriously, which is why I wish you would respond about the idea of a new servertype for veteran players that me and several other people have posted about. You're trying to appeal to two different ends of a gaming spectrum. It brings to mind the console wars that video games are currently in. Nintendo aimed their target audience towards the casual player and created the Wii, pushing the core gaming audience away in the process. For a while it worked, and the Wii was the biggest selling system. But it was a short term gain for a long term loss, one that Nintendo is still reeling from.

I really think that by implementing a unique servertype *think Progression, but on a much more dramatic scale* that gave veterans the game that they loved without the perks and incentives and features that they feel have taken away from the game, you could please both sides of this thread. Let us players who claim heresy at your plans a chance to prove that there's a large enough audience in this game who wants a no merc, no xp pot, no warrior ports *origin/anchor/throne*, naked corpse run kind of game. If in 6 months it cannot keep enough players on it to make it a sustainable server, then we will have our answer ourselves. The fate of the game we believe this game should be will be on our heads. I believe that a server that returned the essence of this game to its roots would be a successful server. Please consider this.

I just remembered the whole "what sustainable means" deal from the NTtB nerf thread and giggled a little. This thread might have the potential to make me happy after all!

All of the reasons you just listed are why they are auto granting AA's, lol. Powerleveling will still exist, it always has and always will.

And in the BEST case scenario, you're killing level 88 mobs for mediocre AA. Yahoo!

People are under the impression rogues can swarm, pretty hilarious.

Killing 20 humanoids light blue mobs every 30 minutes and going AFK for 29 minutes till counterattack is up = swarm

Getting into how much exp they grant is a completely different conversation.

You guys should go ahead and lock this thread ... at this point players are only making new forums acc to rant and whinne ... and then say they are the "majority".

Damn our zone disrupting abilities!! Of course killing the mobs aren't the issue. Pulling the mobs is, this is a band aid on a clunky pathing system.

If you intend this as a suggestion for what SOE should do when the change goes live, I am going to laugh. A lot.

Incidentally, I remember such trying experiences in my early years of EQ as some of the most fun. Struggling alone, or gathering together friends and guildmates - and sometimes, greater portions of the server population - to resolve an issue like "my corpse is camped" ... these were some of the most powerful experiences of my EQ history.