Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

Elidroth

My concerns are pretty standard when it comes to Assassinate. Have you decided whether or not you're going to impose a humanoid restriction on Decapitate, or remove the restriction from Assassinate/Headshot?

If the answer it that you're leaving all three alone except for raising their level cap.. then yes, I would really like a refund of that AA.

If you are leaving the restriction on Assassinate and Headshot while not putting the same restrictions on Decapitate.. I would also like to ask you to reconsider that stance and remove the restrictions from Assassinate/Headshot.

No. Refunded AA don't expire as they used to

It should work the same way other refunds worth that go over the cap and you have to spend them before you zone.

Absolutely this, There has been more than enough feedback to show that there will be problems with the change, so why change it and guarantee problems, why not wait a few more days and get it right.

He already said he's not going to restrict decapitate, and not expand assassinate or headshot.

I don't see how that changes anything that I said.

We've talked quite a bit about a new loot system, maybe in the future.

You asked a question, he's already responded and said he is leaving them alone. In the last several pages.

They can turn the grant off at any level. If they wanted to, they could cherrypick HoT+ AAs like I'm doing now and accept the grant after they've already filled out most of them. They'll have a disadvantage in some of the long AA lines that get really heavy, such as healing/defensive/offensive passives but using my method should get them caught up quite quickly.

What I dont want to see, is these changes pushed out to meet your criteria - lag reduced, lag problem fixed.

And all the other problems arising just ignored and put on "to do list" sometime between visible cloaks and ship to ship combat.

I can so see this happening.

Well, that's an aggressive timeline.

Was there any discussion regarding a more limited rollout of autogrant? For example general tab only, passive abilities but not activated.

I saw a couple of these posts, but these threads are a real nightmare with the users going back-and-forth with each other. In some cases dozens of posts by the same people.

If the main goal of these nerfs is to hinder zone disruption then it's better in SOE's eyes to take care of all relavant classes in one fell swoop rather than nerf one, have outcry and finger-pointing to other classes' abilities, nerf another, more outcry, more fingerpointing, nerf the next in line, etc. etc.
Whether or not we agree is moot as this is the most efficient way of going about it to that end.

As far as the AA grant is concerned I'm completely indifferent to it. I've been playing since 2000 and have been maxed AAs for a long time and I can't be bothered to get worked up about other people getting a chunk to lessen their ascent up the rather large AA mountain. I just don't care.
I also don't care what other classes get or don't get. All I care about is my class.

Having said that, thank you SOE for not simply going forward with your original plan for the SK class but rather spending time listening to the reasonable suggestions counter to what your original plan was.
It's very much appreciated.

Any chance we can get a universal (account wide) blocked buff window? Unless there's some way to copy paste it with ini files or whatever that someone wants to share. I'm scared of all the people who are gonna start spamming perfected lev on me now. I hate levitation. =P

I'll once again repeat that this isn't a vote. It's a make your feelings known so that can be considered. Additionally if we had a vote, it's not like UN vote monitors will be standing by and assisting. Those who lose the vote, whoever they are, will say that the vote results were fraudulent. It happens every time we have a contentious in game poll.

Rather than reading a zillion posts every night on this topic and quibbling in daily meetings over your impending decisions and the apparent outrage on the forums, just put up an updated poll when users log in this weekend and get some actual, quantifiable data about your plan. Seems like a more efficient and reliable way to help this process along.

Sorry if I missed it but will HS be available on all mobs or just humanoids still?

The whole point(stated) is to help people catch up. By keeping them toggled off they're in no way helping. The AA grant does not do what they say it is doing. It's a false premise.

That's true to an extent. However, as a live cleric, getting groups outside of my guild and/or circle of friends since the advent of mercs is almost impossible. If I log in at an odd hour, the folks that I can normally find groups with aren't on thus making it almost impossible to find an xp/progression group because cycling through various cleric mercs is so easy.

Yes, I have 4 gold accounts and used to box them. Even when I was an active boxer, I still preferred to replace my boxes with live players. However, I was seriously injured and am no longer able to do box. Now, if I can't find a group for my cleric, I'll try on any of my 3 other toons... Usually with the same result.

The personal info is just to make my point that mercs have, for the most part, completely negated the need to socialize, expand your circle of possible group-mates and/or include live players in your adventures. Mercs have actually encouraged the anti-social mindset that used to be an extremely minute part of the EQ population.

Mercs nerfed the need for cooperative game play that used to be such a huge and attractive part of EQ.

The one thing I would say to make it so people learned the characters better is that of instead of autogranting all the AA's for the given level/expansion 4 below would be to autogrant the AA's you are talking about but leave the class AA's off. This will allow people to learn their character better (and maybe work on some AA prior which would be basically class only and maybe some other minor things) The class AA's are what can make a character a lot better,while most of the others will help most survive better.

Just a thought Piestro, or can do this type of autogrant and then give say 250 or 500 AA to spend though a few claims or rewards so they can customize their character.

Quantifiable data from devs who may or may not years of playing experience can't account for suggestions arising from the game knowledge of thousands of people who HAVE been playing for years. We have already gotten a significant change to SK Mortal Coil/Lich Sting instead of the original plan for no lifetaps proccing from ripostes. A poll would not have allowed for such a change to happen.