Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Prathun, Feb 5, 2014.

  1. Bonemelter Nemesis Enforcer

    Not to change the subject , but why is there no love for monks ? why are they virtually left out of the insta-kill ability group ? like rogues rangers and zerkers. Are monks just hated by the devs and left to be stuck as they are, not able to tank , rarely get to be " pullers " now with bards shadowknights and almost any other group getting a mem wipe / Feign type of ability , heck even paladins can do it now. And their dps is not so epic that they can survive killing a dark blue mob without a merc healing them, yet a ranger can snare / headshot any dark blue humanoid up to 100 now without a merc ? as long as it does not summon. Just curious why are they overlooked / left out still from these type of abilities ?
  2. duo13 Elder

    Having a Rogue... please tell me this isn't about mages beaming and the exploiting they have done.. that is unthinkable...
    Fenthen likes this.
  3. Bonemelter Nemesis Enforcer

    sorry i meant headshot up to 99 , not 100
  4. duo13 Elder

    the insta-kill is being nerfed
  5. Adanedhel New Member



    My rogue would like the added level, my ranger a refund please :)
    Fenthen likes this.
  6. Buler-ill New Member

    Ability and Spell Changes

    In addition to the above changes, we’re also considering a number of changes to spells and abilities that allow for killing excessive amounts of NPCs simultaneously. The reasoning has to do with the ways that these abilities are used and how they are negatively impacting other players’ experiences and server performance.

    So since ranger's Headshotting don't really swarm anymore, they just kill 1 to maybe 4 or 5 mobs at a time, Headshot will be staying the same? Because it was already nerfed in 2011 to keep Rangers from swarming tons of mobs, and that nerf was effective. Yes I'll keep posting this same basic idea until someone official acknowledges it. If that is the reason for the nerf, then good news, you can save dev time, swarming for rangers has already been nerfed.
  7. Iila Augur

    Those SK numbers feel really low, they're going to hurt SK tanking performance in normal situations. In a lot of cases this is going to be a significant nerf for SKs who don't even swarm. Was the fact that SK ripostes include a bash that does very little healing but eats a charge taken into account?

    You really don't need to over-nerf the SK epic to prevent some resurgence of swarming, a 1300 hit MC kills it. I know there's a long EQ tradition of over-nerfing things into uselessness, but it's not necessary to go that far with this. 800 hits is low enough that an SK can come close to using them all up by themselves with good buffs and a 2H weapon.
    Omniscience likes this.
  8. mystic37 Journeyman

    As a long time cleric that has been around since 1999, as a full paying member... this post is spot on.

    I never wanted to play any other class.

    When the mercenaries were introduced you killed the class. We went from having many groups to choose from... to just raid cleric only...

    My main was a cleric and my husbands was a warrior.... and in a drop of the hat... you effectively "tanked" our mains

    So you forced me to re-adjust, my game play, my gear, my aa's to fit into a battle cleric mode of play...opting for a cleric mercenary or warrior mercenary.

    You gave me 3 options....
    1. Quit playing EQ
    2. Make my cleric able to tank blue cons and use a cleric mercenary
    3. Retire my cleric and re-roll another class...

    Most of the old school clerics I knew throughout the years.... Opted for choice 1 AND 3.

    I adapted and accepted those changes....

    Maxed out combat aa's, and anything else a warrior would need to survive. Got every 40 ac augment I could get and put heal aa's on the back burners... and geared myself like a tank... I also created a 2 box combo.

    I box a level 100 cleric and a level 100 chanter, with 2 wizard mercenaries. My husband boxes a 100 necro and 100 mage....

    Not because we wanted to... because your game changes forced us to do so

    My 2 gold accounts and my husbands 2 gold accounts...

    We have paid subs since 1999 with no breaks... we have rode out the changes.. regardless of how bad some of them were to certain classes....our mains to be specific....remained very loyal to the brand. Purchased every expansion as well.....

    Now you nerf the clerics... while giving mercenary clerics gear and to make them better?

    And before some of you jump in and say you elitist do not want to group....

    We pay to play this game without drama.... grouping is a mixed bag of crazy...

    We do not get a lot of time to play the way it is... Corpse running is not fun... a level 100 cleric asking what heals to throw is ridiculous.... and a level 100 warrior yelling "run" when things start getting hairy and leaving the group to die is not only not productive....its frustrating.

    I will not get into the loot issues of " well I am the tank I get the upgrade" or "you have a few level 100 toons you do not need the upgrades"

    The aa grants.... I can live with.... the nerfing of the cleric class... is a bit harder to live with.
    Abrax likes this.
  9. Elayana New Member

    I began my EverQuest career in March of 2001. My main character, which is an Enchanter
    on Bertox, was created roughly three months later. I played this toon continuously
    until the end of Seeds of Destruction where I retired her for the next three years as
    the #1 geared Enchanter on the server across all stats for six months AFTER I quit
    playing. She had roughly 3500 AA which was max at the time.

    Three years later I returned to the end of Veil of Alaris which then soon turned into
    the release of Reign of Fear and found that max AA was now roughly 11k and level cap
    was 100. The gear had outrageously higher stats then what I still had on which was end
    game SoD. I could only chuckle at the increase in everything. However my husband and I
    began to work on catching me up. Playing casually, within 2 weeks I had gone from
    level 85 to 100. It then took approximately a year of casual play to max out my AA
    cap, sweep through most of VoA content and all of RoF content (shortly followed by CotF) and once again become the #1 geared Enchanter across all stats for my server..

    And guess what the results of a simple casual years work of a game I enjoy playing
    provides? KNOWING HOW TO PLAY MY CLASS. I have spent many many years listening to
    people profess about how useless my class is and watch those that know the barest
    anything of how to play it main change to the current favorite class. I am more then
    used to having to wade through insufficient players to join my guild.
    I do not, however, look forward to an influx of bad, power leveled, bought, ebayed,
    box'd, buff-brod toons that will undoubtedly show up on my proverbial guild door step.
    I will however, do so. Because as a whole, we've never been able to stop culling out
    the instant gratification players.

    What WILL be a problem is when inevitably SoE will begin to cater to these folks even
    more.

    It has begun with:

    Destroy the ability to mass power level (not including exploits) - Point for SoE
    Buy your level 85 Heroic Character. - Money for SoE
    Buy your augs and gear up to previous expansions so that you don't have to work for
    them, but only if you pay for your account. - Money for SoE
    Here are 5-6k AA to get you started so that you don't have to waste time grinding
    through them and learning content and your class, BUT ONLY if you pay for your acct.
    - Money for SoE

    And it will turn into this:

    "No one wants to play with us, the game is too hard and they say we aren't good enough.
    Waa waa waa.. please make this easier.." And you'll do it. So exactly what part of
    enjoyment should folks who are incapable of playing said game get? WHY are you even
    here if you are not willing and able to PLAY THE GAME AS INTENDED, which is one of
    your favorite phrases I do believe.

    Max level characters geared and with large numbers of AA with ZERO skill were once
    made massive fun of, they were called Ebayed accounts. No one wanted to play with them
    because they were a liability. You are creating an entire Zombie army of Ebay-like
    characters. Why? For the money. I'm pretty sure most people call this, selling out.

    I realize that the development team is not the end-all be-all at SoE, but that they
    also take their instructions from someone higher. Someone that may not have a "Gamers
    mentality" but more of a "What's in your wallet?" thought process. But I encourage you
    to remember your reason for getting into this field. Your pride and dignity in regards
    to putting out a top notch product and not just "feeding the pig".

    This may not be a democracy but facts are facts, no players means no money for SoE.
    Because those fly by night pretend toons you are selling, sure as hell are not going
    to be paying for long.
  10. junglenights Augur

    There's a point some people are missing. It has to do with "earning" versus being granted 4000 AA's.

    Lets say instead of giving 4000 AA automatically they decided to instead increase the AA gain rate by 10x or something. They also decided to add AA rewards to quests, like the Hero's Journey.

    So far so good? Not really. Why?

    First of all, there's a 30 aa limit to how many AA's a character can have at any one time. So if a quest grants 10 aa, for example, it would all get converted to regular experience if the player already had 30 aa's banked. So giving players AA when they complete quests doesn't work out well with the way AA's are stored, unless there was a way to convert already existing regular experience to AA's. This way if you forgot to spend banked AA when you completed a quest you could convert some of the normal experience you gained to AA.

    The first point also pertains if the AA rate is 10x. Players will be hitting the 30 AA limit much faster. This will cause them to have to use the AA window a lot more early on which might cause some to be frustrated by it for similar reasons.

    Second, there're a lot of AA's. New players do not know much about them. When they open up the AA window, they see a wall of text. /eyesbleed. Included in the time it takes to get 4000 AA's isn't just the time it takes to get the experience itself, but the time it takes to understand which AA's the player wants to train.

    Third, 85 levels AND 4000 aa's is a lot of catchup. There're still 15 levels and 5000+ more AA's and those will take AT LEAST as much time as the 85 levels and 4000 aa's that came before it. If a player wants to play with friends or just wants to play in the higher levels they have a long climb to get there. Even if you speed up the rate they gain those AA's, it's still a formidable wall blocking them from the higher level game.

    Undeniably, even though players will be granted 4000 aa's essentially for free, since players had to gain 85 levels before just as much as they do after these changes, they STILL have to learn all the AA hotkeys and what they do. Learning how to use the AA hotkeys can be tricky. Additionally, they also have to learn about the AA's as they level up so they'll be prepared for them when they're 85 and know what to train. This could pose problems for players if they level up to 85 really fast.

    When Shadows of Luclin released there were far fewer AA's to train. When a player opened up the window it wasn't as mcuh of an eyesore. If players wait until 85 to look at the AA's, it might be confusing, depending on how many can be trained at 85.

    I think if hte AA window doesn't currently show whether an AA has a hotkey or not without clicking on it, it should. New players leveling up will probably be annoyed by having to click them to see if they have a hotkey.

    One last thing and it's about character development. I think many players here foroget just how confusing the AA's really are. In a conventional RPG character development usually centers around 10-20 skills and maybe 4-8 stats. In general, things are explained and it's roughly straight forward. In all my years of playing RPGs, I mostly played them, but in EQ I often felt the need to read AA walkthroughs. AA's are not very clear. You have to read each one. And even after you read it you're not sure how much it's worth. Bottom line, AA's are not the best form of character development and are probably too cryptic.
    code-zero and Pickleweasle like this.
  11. sinderkad Augur

    A great idea, but how? i would love to chill in old expansions on a regular basis knowing i could group with people.....but....how? New players want to play EQ with other players. If they wanted to play single player games they would play skyrim or other great single player games. Old veteran may want to solo/molo/box old content but they will still have that option.
  12. Soulrheever Journeyman

    Hit the nail right on the head... these numbers just aren't high enough. They could be doubled from those current counts and still make swarming utterly impossible... but it would sure make them a lot more useful in every other situation.
    Garshok likes this.
  13. Coruth Augur

    In theory couldn't you just set the Archery AA Line to zero.
    And create a 2nd AA that fired a big physical proc that triggered only off that spell line?
    ((Seems would be similar to anti-summoned spell lines))
    a 300k proc effect is a 300k proc regardless of whether its the old head shot or not.
  14. sinderkad Augur

    If i wanted to play a single player i would play something else. Dont pretend there is anywhere near as many groups at low lvls, that's just silly. Really the only players who want to go to old content are those that ALREADY have access to current content or old veterans wanting to relive old content. This wont change anything for those people who want to opt out and experience that. i could go on, but yea...
  15. Valazure New Member

    I'm recently returned after playing pretty hard core up to PoP. I've attempted to return several times. The issue is everytime I return I solo or box for a week or two, since groups are nonexistent in the low to mid levels. Then notice I've manage to grind out 150 to 200 aa. Then I realize I've only got another three THOUSAND to go before groups will even consider me. So I stare at the log in screen trying to convince myself that another 3 hour aa grind by myself is fun. Then I log out cancel and read about eqnext or furiously Google news for an announcement of a new tlp server.

    I'm excited about the help up but I still have a feeling that people will continue only grouping with the people they group with now. Either way I will probably opt in an make my own groups since I will finally not be a detriment in higher content.

    I feel that this is only a stop gap though. I'll have 4k aa but when the next expansion releases it will be 10k aa required.

    I really wish that the devs would implement a template for classes. I don't need maxed out int aa on my monk..

    And for those of you complaining about how this invalidates your hard work, I can relate. When they moved the level to 10 for losing gear when you died I felt the same way. Then I remembered how much fun I had due to the fear of dying. It was fun I didn't lose and couldn't replicate again. That fear left me when I got experience in the game. I still have those memories. My point is if you enjoyed grinding and later using those aas then it was Not all for nothing.

    I also remember my girlfriend at the time crying because she lost her body in kith and she had some fine steel I had given her.
  16. Rogue Augur

    SK epic lasts what? 105 seconds? You would have to LAND more than 7.5 hits per second to use that up. Monks with 1handers don't even do that.
  17. sinderkad Augur

    Plenty of reasons. 1. Having a core set of AAs makes most classes nearly exponentially more effective. Most Vets seem to forget what it was actually like to not have AAs but serisouly a Beast lord with 4k AAs vs one without is like comparing a toy boat with a ocean liner. They will feel powerful = not feeling useless = more motivated. 2. They will be more effective = they kill faster/ do their jobs better solo and gorup= more effective time spent if they want things other than just exp. 3. Each expansion makes the discrepancy in caught up worst and worst. Something needs to happen. Saying grind is just part of the game is like saying if you didn't catch the bus have fun walking to caught up with us cause we are not stopping for you.
  18. Abrax Apprentice

    Hero's Journey spans a huge level range, no reason to grant or bank AA's before the low 50's, and if you find the AA tab confusing just to look at you may find using the abilities it grants even more so.
  19. junglenights Augur

    +1. The 3000+ AA climb just to play your role at higher level was a obstacle hard to climb. Hard to find groups. It was made worse if you were completely new to AA's. The plvl's are lame. It made all the other flaws much worse.

    I'm sure this isn't a perfect solution and probably are better ones, but something was needed. In my eyes, this change makes this game more like it used to be. It de-clutters the game somewhat. Lvl 85 is the new lvl 51, in terms of AA.
    Zurd likes this.
  20. Iila Augur

    An un-nerfed epic and this MC would make swarming impossible. You'd need an MC proc about every 5 seconds starting from just before epic wears off. Mortal Residue could be a 3-tick buff and swarming would become impossible. 28 ticks is too absurd to even attempt anything close to swarming. But MC isn't an on-demand tanking tool like the epic is, so having a stupidly long mortal residue blocker isn't a problem in normal play.

    Having the epic click fade early in completely normal group situations IS a problem, though.

    They're telling mages it's ok to kite around 36 mobs, but an SK can't use their epic to tank more than 3 mobs without it wearing off sooner? I haven't been in an exp group in years that didn't have the tank getting hit by at least 5 things at some point.
    Garshok likes this.