Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

Yeah..its horrible to split the playerbase between those that do pay money to play this game, and those that don't have to!

Clearly, silver should get all the rewards as gold, minus an xp buff!

Personally I would love this. I have 16,000 AAs. I have about 300ish AAs saved for the next AA round. I could go silver and not lose a thing, other than the xp buff I clearly don't need!

I can't figure out why they won't implement this.

I just wanted to chime in that the majority of people I have talked to in game have been indifferent to the AA gifting. Our raid team cancelled more accounts from the NTTB nerf than anything mentioned here.

Will be interesting to see if/how raid teams change their required AA amounts for joining.

Do you have insight into the relative proc rate of a level 100 toon vs an equivalently geared for their level toon at say 70?

I appreciate that no matter how you tune the proc rate someone will feel as if they got the short end, but I would think it fair to see that well geared 70's proc at about the same proportionate rate as they do now vs well geared 100's. That may well be your intention in which case, I'm sorry for being a nudge.

I wouldn't think so. Most raid guilds just seem to care about you having specific AAs spent in certain lines/areas.

I would think this would stay the same.

Most people I have talked to don't seem to care either way, as well. You can say something in a genchat channel of 400, and you will most likely get 1 or 2 vocal people against it.

Like it was said earlier, happy people are far less likely to voice being content.

Okay, I'm a little concerned now that the headshot/assassinate changes were suppoedly tuned around people in raid gear now and not around the aa by itself without any mitigating factors. From Velious to around Faydwer when the game was actively tuned around people in raid gear was the worst stretch of game for the bulk of Everquest's playerbase, the people in group gear. You guys have been pretty good the last few years about telling people testing group content in raid gear and proclaiming it too easy that they're not the intended target, and now this? I'd like clarification please. This is the first actually bothersome thing I've seen since the initial announcement of these changes.

you would loose your merc (should be classed as a convenience although now a must to many)
loose your convenience of bazaar trading
loose the ability to auto grant alts expansion bundles a toon on the account may have unlocked
reduce the options for gear and augs(convinence of not having to hunt around)
limit spells and discs to rk1(convenience of faster dps, less damage taken, less heals cast or needed etc)

none of which i admit would stop you hanging around as silver for a the next 6 months till the next expansion comes out

which would mean those arguing against people like me (eg you) are not happy that we want sony to link AA granting to game play. Thus you're actually asking for AA to not be linked to game play

Multi times in this thread they have said it will be week commencing 17th Feb, to early to narrow it down more than that, but Prathum said it won't be 17th as that is a holiday.

If you want to hear it from SOE and not me, I suggest reading through the tracking posts

Ya I'd like to know why this is being based off of raid geared players myself. They will already have less trouble killing a mob as is, because they're raid geared. I also thought Headshot had already been successfully nerfed to avoid swarming, but I digress.

Thanks for pointing that one out. I did miss this little gem when reading Elidroth's post. As if the basic player in this game is raid-geared...

Mitsune, Vazaelle (since 2001; not raid geared)

I for one do NOT want dev time spent on revamping/altering/etc. past content. I want dev time spent on future content. Last time I started a new alt leveling was not an issue, AAs were an issue. I breezed through the levels, when it came time for AAs after the first couple of thousand I got tired of the grind. Granted I have multiple accounts and had other things I could do such as raiding and group progression but a new player does not have those options until 85 and up. There is no group game for low level playerbase. We all chased the shinies and the shinies are in current content.

How about if the proc rate would simply not depend on gear or level? The resulting dmg does depend anyway on lvl.

Mitsune, Vazaelle

I hope you are balancing HS/decap/assassinate around dps, and not simply proc rate. The crit rate for archery and weapon procs are much higher than backstab, and would thus make assassinate even weaker comparatively.

They will look at the spent AAs and not the assigned ones. That will show how many AAs were "earned" by the player.

I don't pay too much attention to the AA achievements.. Will the grant give them or not count for the achievements?

@Piestro @PrathunSOE --- when will we see the changes finalized? when will we see this on the live servers? Too many rumors, need firm timing to adjust in-game strategy accordingly (for example if it's going to be another 10 days I need to account for the extra AA I'll earn in that time)

Thanks.
2fist

You are incorrect, after not too long there will be far too many people with that status to even think about discriminating on a hate basis.

The real criteria for serious raid guilds are competence in their class, ability to function as a team-player, doesn't create drama for the guild, and meets basic requirements. If the class is needed, the last one may be relaxed as it's fixable. If the player meets the first three requirements, I could care less how fast they got their AA's. Believe me, after a week you usually have a real good idea if you're going to keep someone or not.

What rumors?

They have stated many times in this thread the 17th of Feb is the unofficial date. Due to the nature of the feedback and the national Holiday around that date, this is likely to change.

No, I am not.

Nice way of twisting my view point.

You should lose more than a few conveniences by not paying 15 dollars a month.