Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

Just wanted add my voice of general approval to the cacophony. My main has some 25k AA spent and multiple years /played, and I just don't relate to the idea that all those good times are somehow negated by changes at this stage of the game. If the game weren't great (even after all these years) change wouldn't elicit such strong responses, but I don't think it'll be any less great for these changes either.

We're taking a look at adding the rank 5 bonus to the rank 6 ability for the innate lung capacity. No promises.

How would refunding aa's work? Will the banked aa limit allow for a full refund of the HS / Assasinate / Decap lines?

Although I'm not a fan of these changes I know I would just rebuy the lines if they are changed. This comes from a rogue who's capped all aa's though too, so not worried about grinding aa's anymore.

While aa's are being reworked I would love to see some item that you could buy with aa's for later purchase. Similiar to the COTF quest items that you can save for later. An item like this would also allow for the refunding of AA's. i.e. clicking it gives a preset # of aa's. Make so they're no drop so only the toon that buys can use them.

Is there a way to create a summary sticky of the current changes, maybe update daily. At 100 pages of comments it's a lot to sort through to find what is the most recent proposed changes.

Mages would have little reason to grab up a swarm the size of the ones they did. But say for the sake of argument that mages did get the exact same swarm as before. They would run out of mana long before they could kill even the first 12 since the beam would more than likely hit a different set of 12 each cast.

Count them up. It won't work in Chelsith, we can't assassinate shissar. It won't work in chapterhouse, doesn't work on undead. Giants don't count as humanoids there goes most of kael and EW. Shadow has a ton of golems and things that aren't humanoids. It won't work in evantil, it won't work in breeding grounds, it won't work in grelleth unless pigs are flagged as humanoids then we might get half of 1 zone it would work in(which we can't tank, requiring a group). We have alarans in 1 corner of Shard's. We have a few dwarves in kael/ew. This isn't all together that bad for berserkers, there are so few humanoid mobs that for rogues(still requires melee range and we still can't tank any of these mobs) that it is worthless.

It was a decent tool for us to be able to go to 2-3 zones and AA at 100 against level 88 or lower mobs. Is it not obvious why it's a big slap in the face?

Elidroth,

With these changes, are the new ranks being added to the bottom? What specifically will be the impact on the progression servers? Will we have access to the aa's that will let us hit level - 1?

No matter what you believe "most" people think, the amount of people posting (or PMing) is a miniscule fraction of people. Outcry shouldn't affect the devs deciding what they think is best for the game. Facts/arguments people bring up they didn't think about should be what affects them deciding what is best for the game, or correcting errors about abilities or whatever.

I have no doubt a lot of people are happy with this change. And a lot think its bad but shrug their shoulders and move on. Its only a tiny fraction that are like, "I'm gonna quit!" upset.

I'm just glad there is an opt in instead of being forced to take it.

My boss takes pretty good care of me. Maybe I'll get a comp day in the future or something.

Refund.

Except on facebook apparently.

38.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot, including this one.

Silly question again here, but since some people seem so dead set against the AA granting while others are for it, would it be possible to limit the AA granting to specific servers? i.e. designate half for one way, and half for the other. Another option would be to just have a single experimental server designated first and let people transfers off it before the test starts. That way we can definitely see the impacts to the game itself without putting all the eggs in one basket.

I would love to see something like this bringing back older players, but if it angers the current players enough that EQ becomes a ghost town, there isn't really any reason for the old players to come back.

That's a hard situation and we get it. What I have to say might not make you feel any better, but hopefully it'll give a bit more perspective:

If we are going to make this change ever, it is going to work out to someone's detriment in the fashion that you describe. We can see the data that it needs to be changed, that we need to resolve the situation, and we have to pick some point. Hopefully this will benefit you in the long run, in that it will make it easier for people to stick around and catch up and so you will have more people to group with. That's the real reward.

Does that make any sense?

Very true - we have NO way of knowing from this forum how many are for and how many are against! There have been frequent calls though from the against people for a poll - this would only allow 1 vote per paid account so seems a stupid way to go if feel you are in the minority. These requests have however been ignored therefore fueling the conspiracy theory even more. However after reading EVERY post in both threads I have yet to see one of the few repeating negative posters call for a poll to settle the issue once and for all.

I AM AGGRESSIVELY HAPPY ABOUT MANY THINGS IN EVERQUEST RIGHT NOW.

Working on it. Gotta answer the thread first.

I'm still quite a few pages back. Taking a day off slowed me down.

Yes you can toggle it off again before reaching your next level

Refunded AAs typically go over the cap. You don't lose AAs anymore when you zone.

And those have a value greater than anything else, OK. I agree with the second part of the post, you're the boss. I really hope EQ survives this (not sarcasm, I'd like to play this game for several more years, or at least until it's been maimed beyond recognition).