Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

I respect your opp. but have to say i do not agree at all, the dev's dont listen to us at all and its imo that they done the reverse of what you are claiming! Its imo that this game has gone easy mode because of people in group content always saying how hard the game is, and now to top it off they have also gone to this slow release method to gear the game tward the group content players which drives us raiders NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!! For the last 2 years every high end raid guild has been forced to farm content that we would never farm as long as we now have to because they want to spread out the content to give the group aspect of this game and group players a chance to really be able to finish content and have the ability to get the best group gear. Which in the end makes every raider suffer. In no way shape or form has grouper abilities got close to raiders, because at the end of the day its the SAME ABILITIES! RAIDS ARE ONLY THE GROUP HERO MISSIONS BEEFED UP SO YOU NEED 54 TO BEAT IT VS 6! so please dont pretend to know what we complain about, you are very wrong to bash raiders like this because we have NEVER cryed about your ability to HS in fact now its really funny because you claim we cryed about it yet now these skills can be used as intended ON RAIDS! The dev's never met these skills to be used the way 99% of people used them, as a matter of fact the only thing we actually might of said anything about was the fact that when yall started getting instences to be able to NOT WAIT ON RESPAWNS ONLY THEN did we say anything because yall started laggin out the server's we did raids on! And i do not agree with you at all in the statement that this was a nerf on groupers only! the fact is, Raiders have ALWAYS proced more then those in group gear because our stats are better. Why should you ever proc the same rate as we do?!? We work hard with 53 other people to get the gear we have and at the end of the day you can to if you choose to...dont bash us because you choose not to!

this makes me laugh because you have no clue as to how many accounts Sony has lost due to the fact they now release content in the method they are currently using, do you honestly think they care about your 8 accounts?!? guess what i also have mult accounts n will say that if they dont start making this game hard they way it use to be this easy mode stuff makes me want to stop payin for my accounts! and guess what you think they care? NO! they dont so quit if you feel that way, dont n cont, to play n pay otherwise but making threats gets you nowere with sony just a fyi. Countless "raiders" have stoped playing and paying because the game is now easy mode full time and we basicly have to farm t1 for half a year because they dont want to give us the full expansion at once, and sony still does it this way...

tl;dr
raiers do not work harder than groupers.. this is a false statement, how you chose to spend your time is upto you, but saying you work harder is a joke, you have 54 people so the most you are ever doing is 1/54th of the work..you might out work other raiders but you are still 1/54, groupers are 1/6th you do the math. To add to that you also have gear that is out of proportion for the encounters. Raiders blowing up zones with swarmng is/was not an uncommon event. ONLY when group geared mages were able to do it did they make a change.The gap between raid gear and group gear is as large as it has ever been, that is why their was a need to stagnate gear. These forums are filled with raid people crying and whining about everything,Right now over in veterans forum they are currently whining about backflagging, (paraphrasing) "it's to hard. you need to make it easier" and then people like you try to put the honus on groupers. JOKE.

Neither do you.

During the same patch in which AA's, excluding Spell Casting Subtly, were auto-granted; SoE removed Spell Casting Subtly as a requirement for Silent Casting. However, there's been no support for those of us who'd already bought in to Subtly as a means of acquiring Silent Casting. The aforementioned patch did not reset/refund points in to Subtly and petitions to have Subtly reset are denied. For those of us who bought it, long before there was mention of these AA changes, is there no chance in getting this AA reset?

Delete your characters then cancel your accounts.. and not post about it**

I can't decide if it was...
a] reaching 10000 AAs on my own,
b] SOE giving away all the leadership stuff I worked hard for without compensation,
c] SOE giving away thousands of AAs for clicking a checkbox,
d] exciting new (non-SOE) games releasing in the near future,
or e] higher personal standards
...but I can't bring myself to log in anymore. SOE did "fool me once" back in 2006, so shame on you. But then I got fooled twice, so shame on me. Anyway I pretty much beat your game so... have fun with the sinking ship. =) Sayounara

If you are going to shoot! Shoot! Don't talk!

That made me laugh....

Health
Health
Deployment
Deployment
Marriage
threat of a divorce
new stage in romance
new job
new job
no job
no job
kicked out of house
"working for a few months for the state or the county"
"working for a few months for the state or the county"
Decided I wanted a life
Decided I wanted a life
Decided I wanted a life
Decided I still wanted a wife
break
break

Same as always. With the exception of GoD and UF when people jumped ship like mad (or the ship jumped them/their guilds disappeared) because it was too hard and not because it was too easy, it's no different now than it has always been.

Well, just get to word in at the end of this nerf, wanted to say told you so.

Granting aa's did not get me more groups, made it harder to get groups, people left. Nerfing powerleveling that has been around for years, it changed the whole game and a whole lot left. Stop messing with old content and the game we love, if you want changes build it into the new content and leave the old alone.

But, I do like the idea of heroic toons. I give you thumbs up on it, thumbs down on the granting aa's, on the nerf of powerleveling, I never swarmed, but you hurt the population.

I just wanted to say not I did not leave the game, I pay for the game, maybe in time a lot will come back, but you ruined why they where here. In doing this you greatly hurt the game for me also, the one still here still paying.

I do no thank you for the game, it is your job, you do not do this for no pay, when you start working on the game and take no money I will start to thank you for saving it, in the mean time you continue to hurt the population. If I am wrong then show me the last 10 years of growth in population, if it has not grown then you can no deny you where wrong on most if not all issues.

I don't normally post on the forums but I wanted to comment on this thread.

I don't play any classes that the swarming nerf will affect so I won't comment on it. Regarding the AA bonus to gold players, though, I say kudos to SOE!

You guys who are complaining need to step back, take a few deep breaths, and think about it for a second. This implementation of the AA bonus is thought out pretty darn well.

First let me say that I recently returned to EQ and I'm NOT taking the bonus on any of my 6 characters. Still, I think it's a great idea.

1. It gives people the option of choosing to A) receive a bonus that helps them up UNTIL UF then requires them to grind out remaining AAs without the benefit of the curve, OR B) decline the bonus and use the AA exp curve to customize their character.

2. From a monetary perspective it does encourage people to go gold. Those of you who are claiming that people will just go gold for a month to get the AAs aren't thinking it through. 1) If the player is pre-UF in their level / progression then they need to remain gold to get the AAs applied each time they level. 2) If the player is beyond that point then they need to remain gold to be able to accumulate more AAs. Either way, it gives people a very strong incentive to go gold.

I know that point #2 may not seem important to veteran players but it should be. More money in SOE's pockets means more developers. More developers means more content and features. More content and features retains current players and attracts "new" (mostly returning) players. All of this is good for the game as a whole.

3. Finally, the "I had to work for my 10k AAs new players should too" line of thinking is beyond dumb. I don't use the word "dumb" a lot but it applies here. I mean, come on. Mature games have to continually change the progression curve so new and returning players can catch up to the end game a be relevant. When I retired in 2005 I had a level 65 warrior, mostly raid geared, with a couple hundred AAs. It took hundreds of hours work and I was pretty darn proud of it. In 2009 I came back to the game and found out you could hit level 65 and a couple hundred AAs in a few days with nothing but a tank merc and tutorial gear. Was I ticked? Nope. I didn't get on the forums and cry that I should be compensated for the hundreds of hours I spent on my warrior back in the day. I was grateful that SOE had found ways to make it easier for me to catch up with current content.

I semi-retired again in 2011. I play EQ off and on but I gave up raiding. Too much work. I also rolled 6 new toons and am using them to explore the content in old expansions. Right now they're all about level 60 and I'm working on old Planes / Kunark / Velious stuff. I missed a lot of that content in the past because I was so focused on "beating" EQ that if my guild wasn't raiding it I just skipped it. Now I'm playing casually and experiencing that content and I'm loving it.

Point is, for someone like me the AA bonus isn't necessary and I'm not taking it. I'm not in a rush to reach level 100. At this rate I'll probably never catch up to the latest expansion. It makes more sense for me to take advantage of the AA curve and place my AAs carefully. But for someone who is wanting to reach the end game quickly the AA bonus is just what they need. And SOE was right to put it in.

I know this has been a long post but I want to say one final thing. Those of you who have played EQ non-stop for 10+ years are understandably jaded. It's kind of like putting a frog in boiling water. The changes at SOE (in terms of customer service, listening to player feedback, etc) are happening slowly, and if you've been a player observing them the whole time then it's easy to not realize that changes are happening at all. If you're someone like me who's returning to the game or who has taken a long break, though, you should understand that SOE today is LIGHT YEARS from where they were in 2005.

In 1999 - 2005 SOE didn't listen to player feedback. Shortly before WoW came out I made a post on the forums saying that I loved EQ but I was concerned that SOE's refusal to fix bugs and listen to their player base would lead to a widespread migration away from EQ the second something else was available. I said it politely and maturely and I guess it got somebody's attention because Absor replied. We had a polite conversation, but basically what he said was that every game had a life cycle and he was sure something else would come along eventually that would end EQ.

Wow. (pun intended)

At the time I felt that SOE was putting all of their hope in EQ2. I felt that they honestly didn't care about EQ1 and they weren't concerned about WoW. I felt that they didn't care that the vast majority of EQ1 players were saying that the graphics requirements were too high for them to run EQ2. Or that the vast majority of players were saying they were incredibly frustrated with new content being rolled out non-stop while bugs and other issues caused non-raiders to fall farther and farther behind.

In my opinion SOE learned their lesson. It just took them a long time. If you follow the development of Everquest Next you can see that they're focused on making a game that is *for* the players, not for them. I can see the same changes happening with Everquest. Slowly but surely.

No, SOE won't ever be able to make everyone happy. Nobody can. Someone is going to be mad no matter what you do--including if you do nothing. In this case though the AA changes are desperately needed for many players. So again, kudos, dev team, and keep up the good work.


Players returning to the game are faced with having to grind out thousands of AAs just to be relevant in the end game. Many people, like myself, prefer to grind those AAs and customize our characters. That's all well and good. Others, though, are turned off to the game and frequently quit around the time they realize how much of a grind it entails. This change gives people incentive to stay.

According to the devs, there has been a rise in populations rather than a decline.

Most changes like this will see an increase in the player base, the issue is whether or not it is a sustained increase or if it's a short term increase. I would hazard a guess that it's short term, but nobody knows for sure until a decent amount of time has passed.

No one is forced to select auto-AA. No one. If you folks don't like it, then son't use it. I've been here since 2004, and I like the idea.

I probably wont use it on all my characters, because it is doubtful I'll level all of my 150 plus characters up to 51st level and beyond.

Anecdotally I think that there has been a sustained increase recently in server population. I'm speaking of the last 1-2 years, not the last couple of weeks. I don't know what the numbers are actually like, I'm just basing that off the number of returning and even new (gasp!) players I see in general chat.

However, while I think it's great that SOE is continuing to develop and improve EQ1, I think a lot of people returning to the game are doing so because of Everquest Next. I've seen a lot of people both in game and on the forums saying that watching Everquest Next has caused them to want to re-visit Norrath. Hopefully SOE will capitalize on that by offering substantial benefits (on top of the ones that already exist) for Everquest Next players who are veterans of EQ1 & 2. That could cause a sustained boost in numbers at least until EQ Next is released.

That's just my opinion. I don't know what the #s are. Either way, I plan to play EQ1 until they shut the lights off, so I'm delighted that they're still putting so much dev effort into it. IMHO EQ1 has become a niche game like Eve. If SOE handles it properly then I think they can reverse the population decline permanently--or at least move that population laterally to EQ Next instead of losing subs to other games.

No, but several class were forced into a nerf so they could sell level 85s for $35.

Stop and think about that. It doesn't add up. There are always people who will spend RL $ for virtual products. Before krono people went to third party sites to buy PLs with in game plat. After the introduction of krono people spent RL $ to buy krono they could sell in game for plat, which they could then use to buy PLs.

All SOE did when they introduced krono was move some of that buying of plat into their own pockets, and there's nothing wrong with that. When it comes to "buying" exp they're doing the same thing. Again, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. They're making a product and selling it. I don't know why so many people take issue with that. They don't work for free.

At the end of the day the free AAs for gold subscribers and the heroic characters would still be purchased without the swarm nerfs. It's far easier to spend $35 on a heroic character or $15 for 4k AAs then it is to buy krono, flip it for plat, and find someone to PL you.

SOE says the swarm nerf is about server performance and I don't see any reason to doubt that. They even gave us pretty charts and stuff.