Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

I've killed a wave of 15 to 20 mobs in 60 to 90 seconds when I was in the 80's with headshot...course they were only light blues, but it is still decent aa experience. I usually get thumped if I try to tank the same mobs one at a time...

I agree they swung too hard the other way with the headshot nerf. I think depending on your rank of headshot, the lower the level of the mob, the more frequently it should proc. If it is twice a minute for the highest level you can affect, that makes sense because it will not create super fast killing of dark blue con mobs.

If you are level 100 with max headshot and you are fighting mobs that are level 85, I think the proc rate should be higher than if they are fighting a level 99 mob. After all, a ranger is not going to solo pull 4-5 mobs that are level 99. That's just asking for disaster.

Nerfing the ability to survive a bad pull does not sound appealing. You can once more train kill. And putting a tether to spawn location is too hard to code for all npcs? You could also code in a max npc engage. So that if you have 10 mobs on you, the 11th one will gate home. Much easier to give a whole slew of players who have not been around for years a lot of unearned power, and then weaken those who have stuck it out and learned the system. These systems have been tweaked over the years by very loyal and dedicated players. True they would be upset if you limited the range a npc will follow you, or the max number of npc's you can engage in, but they would still have their power when needed in emergency situations.

Oh wow, so if everything is maxed out on AA's.. ugh.. I used to do small solo quests to get them and exp. too.. I'm okay with it though since I'm only lvl 85 and been stuck there for a while. Personally I like earning them because it makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something with my character. Does this also include the merc AA's too or just ones for your toons?

ok a better example of a swarm zone. plane of earth, the earthen badlands. not even instanced. raid zones. instanced but still. anyone get the feeling raiders will eventually get ticked if they don't redesign mobs to get along with anti swarming? they can talk a big game but if the servers need it the entire game needs a spawn design overhaul.

This has been addressed by the devs. These options are not viable without fundamentally changing the code.

Just for your toons.

Okay thank you Potawatomi, I appreciate that.. oh, I also noticed that it's optional to take the auto-AA's.. so I might think about whether I want to or not, I really like the idea of working for them and not be all maxed out with them. But on the other hand I'm so many expansions behind that I'm on the fence with this one (I have all the expansions but can't solo many of them). I grouped for a bit of time but I found out that I'm better soloing than grouping, some players overestimate my abilities and I do have low HP for certain content in the game.. anyway, I don't want to make this comment too long.. so I appreciate you letting me know about the mercs

I was running instances for my daughter's Druid this weekend for a DA Clicky. Yes they're dirty grey cons, yes I pulled MASSIVE trains in my efforts. NO, there was no server lag or even computer lag. But by Sony's definition of swarming, that's exactly what I was doing. It doesn't matter if they grant XP, swarming is swarming. I still pulled 50+ mobs and the 'server' had to calculate all their pathing, etc right? Now, maybe you want to pull a mob and kill it one by one (or 12 by 12 hehe) when it/they could practically be one-shot. I'd rather get the drop faster than that and move on to the next item. They can nerf whatever they want, but the reasons they're giving us are hogwash. Just be honest with us, Sony. What is the REAL reason?

Had to go find out on my own. Went to the test server and played for an hour.

Not impressed with headshot, but thankfully we still have it. However don't ever expect it to save your bacon soloing anymore. 20 kills in 5 mins in Tosk is now more like 5 kills in the same time. Have not parsed yet, but if someone wants it I'll post it. It surely was not proc'ing 2x/min consistently.

"Glass half full" view is now I can HS Feerrott at 91. While getting my handed to me makes me have to have a merc healer sucking up exp, HS will proc on Tae Ew. However, the exp from Tosk pre-nerf and Feerrott post-nerf w/merc may be comparable.

It would "appear" they either up'd the damage done, or the extra AAs from the grant made that much of a difference. Tosk mobs drop on 1st proc from >90% health. Pre-nerf mobs would drop to roughly 20% health from the 1st proc.

Unfortunately I don't do the scientific method thingy. In retrospect I should have taken HS data before adding in the AAs. My bad. Can anyone confirm they are seeing any of the above as far as increased damage on HS?

I hope SOE finds some way to reimburse us for AAs "earned". I understand that on test the AAs were awarded up to HoT. After that I spent an additional 1000+ AA to buy everything else I could buy at 91. This means I had roughly 2990AA that were banked. That seems extravagant. However, if they only award through Underfoot with go live, that number may be closer to 900AA banked. With that said, it may be acceptable to be granted a 2kAA bonus for veteran accounts (>4yrs) that are gold at the time of the award and have over 2kaa spent. Am I the only one that would find this acceptable at a minimum?

Limiting any auto-granting to a toon with over 2k AAs spent and 4+ years of being active would destroy the whole reason the auto-granting is being done to begin with.

Depends on what the reason is...

If SOE wants new players to "get over the wall" then it shouldn't matter to them how many AAs I'm reimbursed, but it matters greatly to me. (selfish I know)

However, if the goal is to ensure new players who avoid the work are equal to vet players who put in the work over the years. Then I agree with you, Tarrin. That would destroy the reason.

Which ever two reasons are true, is my additional 2kAA, which I earned, going to put me that much over the new player's awarded 4k?

You are conveniently omitting the several hundred hits and bashes other than ripostes that as I understand it also count against the 800 limit. (In one parse, 654 hits alone not counting ripostes or bashes).

Just like when you whinge that 1320 incoming hits is too high a limit for Mortal Coil when I am getting 3607 incoming hits swarming Kaesora using a 2HB (758 landing and 2849 dodged, parried or riposted) and 3277 with a 1HB and shield (586 landing and 2691 dodged, parried or riposted). All for the princely reward of ~4AA/.swarm, repeatable four times an hour.

I would just as soon have the leech effect completely removed from Mortal Coil, but color me a bit skeptical about your analysis regarding the impact of the upcoming nerfs on SKs.

At the same time it could also increase the people selling PLing. There will be no easy button anymore so a decent player in raid gear will be able to still kills just as fast but players using decap, swarming, beam, and assassinate will slow down to the point it wouldn't be worth it. So now those original PLers will be back and charging a lot more.

Agree with you Garshok. The change will be a nerf as all stated when the changes first came out.

Matter of fact, all the changes work out as nerfs, I read the below post concerning ranger's headshot. I felt equally as surprised in the ineffectiveness of the ability post change. An ability that barely procs even usable to max level minus one is still an ability which barely procs...useless.

As far as all the changes, I just wonder how many will not like them and want nothing to do with the game after having those skills the way that they were for so long.


Disappointed,

Ryneis

The goal is to get new people caught up with some beginner AAs.

Putting any restriction on it that makes it to where only "veteran" accounts get the reward, destroys that goal.

Why should anyone get reimbursed anything?

I bought a TV a year ago for X price. Today it is on sale for about 70% of its previous price. Should I go to Best Buy and demand a reimbursement? No.

My reward was being able to take advantage of the AAs and experience the game long before the new people just entering. If anything, I am sad that the new/returning players missed out on so much of EQ already. I would like to get them caught up ASAP so that it doesn't happen again.

I wanted to log my current headshot activity to compare to what is coming, so I went over to EB and killed a bunch of mobs near the zone in. My logs show that over a 30 minute lesson burn, I had 134 "FATAL BOW SHOT" messages, or about 4.5 per minute. This rate includes the non-headshottable skeleton mobs, so I'm guessing the current proc rate, normal group gear, is close to 5-6 procs per minute using a normal 25 delay bow and the FS and FSoA casts.

Lowering the proc rate to 2 per minute, which will bring us down to 1/3 of what we currently have, will definitely have an adverse impact on soloing the light blues for XP.

I can't believe they are not goint to remove Headshot from just being archery.

My alt has 8K AA, 8 years played you going to include her in keeping her 8K AA? She will earn 1038 AAs if she claims the grant, she won't cause if she does there will be very little reason the play her, which is the position I am in with my wizzy.

They have to draw the line somewhere or there will be no AAs left for people to earn, they chose upto and including Underfoot, which is a pretty good place to stop.

The AA grant to Underfoot is a done deal. It's happening. I've accepted that now. That was not how I intended for the post to be read. I apologize for not being clear.

I agree with you. I hate the fact that new players now start in Crescent Reach. I have many found memories of being "born" in Kelethin. I wish everyone was still born in their home cities. I wish everyone still got to chase hornets, skellies, and Orcs. Doing the level 15 armor quests made things fun. I wish instead of creating so much "new" content that they could make the old content more desirable for new players.

As far as your TV analogy goes, I think of it more along the lines of "The car battery I bought went dead before you said it would, and I want a prorated refund towards the new one."

Please don't take this the wrong way. I respectfully acknowledge your point of view. However, I have a hard time believing you have an equal dog in this fight. You have 15kAA spent and nothing left to spend your AAs on. Do you agree that your feelings on the matter may not be the same as someone not at your level? I have many AAs left to obtain and even with 2k reimbursed it will not get me to your status. Would you be willing to give all your AAs back and restart at Underfoot?