Changes with the February Update: Alternate Ability Grants for Gold Members and Ability Changes

the truth is you guys overcamping is greedy and not needy us necros are needy what I have to do in a zone isn't going to demand 100% of a zone population only a select few mobs

Gifting AA's isn't as negative as people are making it out to be, they are just angry that they put in work to earn what ones they have, which is a completely valid feeling to have, and now some people will be given AA's for subscribing to gold status.

The bottom line is, we all know EQ's numbers have been in decline for a good portion of its life, it seems to me they are trying to breath some new life into the game, which IMO, is much needed. As it sits now, there's not very many truly new players, most low levels are peoples alts.

If you had never played EQ before, and got into it, only to see a huge mountain you have to climb, you would be very likely to turn away and try another MMO, when I came back from retirement, I almost stopped playing the day I logged back in for the first time in 3 years, I seen the vast amount of aa's I was lacking, the levels I needed and the lack of gear, it was very off-putting.

Games change, people can keep the "you have to bust your to get your aa's" attitude all they want, but it's that very attitude that's killing this game, the elitists like to run around in their comfort zone retaining the feeling of "I'm uber", and now this is challenging that feeling and they don't like it. Retain that feeling all they want, but when EQ goes under, where they going to go then? WoW? LOL..

Either roll with the punches, sink or swim, I can't blame SOE for wanting to change certain aspects, it seems to be making it more new user friendly, which is good, I'de rather keep playing EQ then have it fail and shut down, and if that means getting some new subscriptions, then so be it.

EQ has some of the most loyal players I've seen in an MMO, and I don't blame them at all for getting upset, I'm a loyal EQ player, but I also want to see the game thrive, so I can continue enjoying playing it. People put a lot of heart and soul into EQ and their characters, so it's not wrong at all to take change personally, but I do think people need to take off their angry goggles for a minute and think about what's going on in the game as a whole, not just to their character. NOBODY likes nerfs, we've ALL had them happen, it really does suck.

If they don't do something on their end to make this game more new player friendly, then my friends.. we will have no game to play, it will sink like a rock. I don't know about you, but I've tried WoW, and I hated it, I don't want to go back there, or to another MMO, I like my home in EQ.

So bottom line is, the AA auto granting, is good, the nerfs, probably not so good, but we'll see.

I use the summon vendors almost everyday. As to aa I have 18 thousand on my main please please do not stop the autogrant idea. Ive done my time let my alts become playable even if you scale it back to 2 k or so, it is a great idea.your not taking anything away from anyone. You want to level slower and earn aa stop and smell the roses dont rush and enjoy but having a few aa autogrant aa's is not going to kill anyone.

I don't really use Lessons or Expedient often...curse of having more XP than I can use already.
For me, Throne of Heros and
Steadfast Servant, occasionally useful
Staunch Recovery, obvious
Intensity of the Resolute, bit more dps
Armor of Experience, huge defensive ability for a short while,
Summon Resupply Agent, to sell cash loot in the field,
Summon Clockwork Banker, when someone needs bank access in the field,
Summon Permutation Peddler, when someone wants to change augs in the field. Also works to sell loot.
And of course Blessing of the Devoted, which is passive and reduces recovery timers on all the others.

Why did you ask a question with an obvious answer if you didn't want the obvious answer?

Having players training half the zone over and around you , lagging out the zone as they do , so they can sell pls for plat is a serious pain and should be dealt with somehow but not by nerfing those classes who need certain abilities to play their characters decently.
The granting 4k of AA's is the worse idea the devs could think of at this time in the game . I do not join pugs now ,and haven't since the afk leveling up from various missions such as monster missions and OMMs before they were nerfed , because of so many folks having no idea how to play their class ( and how many times have I seen in general chat recently - when its working of course - asking such basic questions that you think they must be a new player , /who <name> and they are a high level )

His name is Franklin Teek.

I like the auto-grant. It's probably not the perfect solution, but when in life is anything perfect. Good work on that one Devs.

As for the beaming/swarming issues, I think that though it will come as a slap in the face to a lot of players that utilize these tactics, in the long run it will be a healthy change for EQ. Perhaps other classes will gain similar abilities yet have them function at a reasonable level; thinking the original rogue ability to assassinate. How cool was it the first time you saw a frog die from one shot in Seb when a rogue got a lucky hit?? Let them bring back some of the fun that these abilities brought without the massively overpowered forms into which they have grown.

Hopefully upgrades to the line with slightly higher % returns will be allowed.

If you are going to max out AAs for the level 85 Heroic characters, you may as well even out the field and auto grant the AAs to everyone. If you think this thread is long and full of negativity, it will be nothing compared to the thread in response to fully geared level 85 Heroic Characters with their AA's maxed out.

Forgive me if I repeat a question that may have already been asked in the previous 68 pages of posts - but if I read them all, it would be next year before I got around to posting.

My question - How will the auto-granting of aa's work with regard to aa achievement levels?

The last time aas were 'auto-granted', I was suddenly 'behind' on receiving achievements by about 30 aas - the new 'difference' between earned and assigned aas (as listed on our aa interface) - even though I had actually 'earned' those aas and spent them (and never on glyphs since I only have just over 4k aas even now), they were in effect 'taken from me' for achievement accounting purposes. That was just a small number but it is still distracting every time I look at it. But .. if you auto-grant 3k plus aas to me (in reality, ones I have already earned and spent), what will that do to that accounting process this time? Will I ever be able to get a max aa achievement?

I ask you to seriously consider changing the aa interface to remove the concept of earned and assigned aas - and just give us one number (whatever one you deem is the best one for us to see) and also make whatever adjustments to achievements necessary to make sure we can still get to those levels (on our own steam) because with this large number seeing the disparity that will probably materialize now between those 2 numbers is going be very demoralizing - and I am sure I am not the only one who will see it this way.

If you have already considered this impact of your proposed changes, could you reassure me please that you have it already planned for. If not, please think about it. Thanks.

I don't see a problem with nerfing "mass killing" of mobs for experience. Horrible (and consistent) lag is something that, on my server, I've only noticed or heard about recently with mage beams. Get on with this fix, it's been too long already.

If some servers have SKs who spend hours upon hours killing 100's of mobs at a time, you may want to investigate this more closely. As an endgame SK, I cannot go kill 100 xp mobs. I can (and will continue to be able to) kill as many trivial mobs as my heart desires, and removing epic + riposte will not actually change this at all, I'll go f*k up 150 mobs at a time for slayer or tradeskill farming or whatever, thereby continuing to lag the servers. All I see coming out of it is reduced group/raid functionality (compounded by nerfs to shining etc, raid situations in particular). That WK raid with 5 waves of 15ish mobs? yeah I won't be touching my AE hate abilities at all, because it's certain death, instead of the current probable-death. Other examples like this in current content are easy to find. If our single target dps was capable of supporting self-healing this change would go a lot smoother for us, but that's been cut in half since VoA, which is already an effective nerf against killing enough mobs to cause issues. Controlling/tanking groups of mobs is a defining SK class ability. Who else can mem 5 or 6 AE hate spells and 2 AE hate AA? Why do we have these spells at all if tanking multiple mobs isn't "intended"??

The changes to assassinate and headshot would be much easier to understand if you told us what you had in mind for improving these. Nerfing them so you can increase them at some undisclosed later date doesn't make sense when 2 of the 3 abilities are already nerfed/neglected to the point of non-use (assassinate more than HS, but..)

As for the issue of zerkers dominating the current hotzone - easy fix: instance hotzones (1-6 players, not this 3-6 stuff like group missions). Make an NPC in PoK that will give the task and zone you in. People will be able to /lfg in PoK (without buff timers ticking down) and still find groups. Maybe even make a hotzone "general" channel so groups in the instance can still recruit more folks. This requires fixing the terribly borked UCS though, and we don't seem to have much noise from the dev crew on when or why chat is fine until raid time, when suddenly it begins a perpetual spam campaign against your player base. FIX THIS PLEASE. I'd be happy with an option to (not) auto-join channels. There's your fix.

To the point of earning vs. giving AA - Why not REDUCE THE COST OF AA RANKS????? It seems silly to me that the 3 ranks of CA/CS from Luclin give the most return, but the cost continues to inflate while the rewards dwindle. SCALE AA COST TO THE GAINS RECEIVED. No more 18 AA for each of the final 15 ranks for fractional percentage increases to (insert everything here). Make those ranks cost 1-3 AA since the gain is so small. 54 ranks of --anything-- might be a bit excessive too, you could roll all ranks from each expac into one rank, which might actually give new players less to worry about. Seeing 20ish ranks (which don't see horrible cost inflation) is much less daunting than looking at 13 lines of AAs that each have 50-60 ranks. In addition to this, give AA reward equal to the level earned. Upon dinging lvl 51, you now have 51 AA to spend as you see fit. At lvl 80, there are no "required" AA you cannot purchase for a total of 80 points. Or attach LARGE (1-2k) AA bonuses to class-related stuff like the (now trivial) epics, or the skillset achs in general tab, or something that still has the sense of "chase and reward". If you must add the ability to yourself into viability, maybe make it so only a single toon on a gold account can get gimped up to viability, or one per year played attached to the existing vet rewards. If it really is new/returning players making a fresh start they get back in quick, but won't flood the servers with an army of half-witted 85/4k AA alts who are no longer crippled by lack of AA, but now by lack of player skill/knowledge.

My account is almost 2 years old, and i have 2 level 100 chars with 20k+ AA between them. I was not PL'ed to the endgame. Yes I swarmed to get some of them. I did it in MG, where it wouldn't affect anyone or, more importantly, they wouldn't affect me. My pulls pathed well and didn't warp/freeze. Where was the "server lag"? I figured out my classes strengths and played to them because that's what Everquest is about. I did it on my own. Joe-kid could too, but more often Joe-kid wants to sit in lobby begging for buffs and whining about his ability being crippled for lack of full compliment of rk3 buffs from every class. The player base has changed, on the whole they're not as motivated or dedicated as they were 10 years ago. I get that. But EQ has always been special because it wasn't a game you could see "endgame" in 3 months as a casual 3-5 times/week player, even on the group side of things. Changing this *might* bring in a few more people, maybe placate a few others, but on the whole your existing loyal player base does not play EQ to be gimped into everything. We play EQ because it's hard. Because it takes time and dedication like no other game on the market. Because we aren't 12 years old with our hand held out for freebees.

There are better solutions than lump sum aa that would work with the current implemented systems.

Off the top of my head. Don't autogrant class aa aimlessly. Instead encourage players to play and quest through content.

An example,

Through achievements:

Paladin is granted class aa through achievements of certain class related quests that once offered rewards for great quests but the reward is now diminished by how fast they level now that quest becomes heroic by virtue of not just an outdated item but x class aa upon completion of the achievement.

Complete epic 1.0 and gain x class aa
And then do the same for 2.0 and 1.5
Divine might, ward of Tunare quest, ghoulbane

This gives incentive to quest and the player experiences the game and gains considerable reward for time spent.

Don't autogrant trade skill aa instead tie it to the shawl quest lines

Permanent underwater breathing? Kill x number if fish
Combat agility and stability? Max those out they are a pain.
Healing related aa? Chunks of those aa once the player reaches plateaus of alteration skill ups and some related x quest.

The problem is that this line of thinking requires way more time than the devs have to develop and as such lump auto granting is the only practical way to implement it.

At the least auto grant general and archetype but ignore class related aa and let the classes play them out through quests.


As for swarming nerfs thank you it is about time.

I am in favor of these changes and I've been a player since 1999. The swarm killing is an issue, not only for the server, but for players doing specific tasks (such as the daily) or other just xp'ing not involved with these tactics. Where many of the mobs in the area are cleared out in one shot by a single or few players. Also, i have friends interested in playing EQ, but starting from scratch and never having the ability to catch up or being close, turns them off to the game. Hence, reduced player population. So the AA grant is a great thing. Keep up with the good work SOE and don't let the nay sayer disway these much needed changes. Thx!

"We wanted to present them in advance so you have an opportunity to let us know your thoughts before the changes go live."
Request granted. Lol. Now, have you hired a herd of interns to read all this feedback?

I was thinking about the mobs in another game I play. They all teather at a certain distance. So, you can't really pull a zone or anything. It's too big of a change for EQ at this point, but I do love that particular mechanic.

I think it's pretty important to point out that the negative posts about autogranting AAs are not a fair representation of the population as a whole. How many people said, "I never post but I'm posting about this!" with a complaint? People have an overwhelming preponderance to voice a complaint instead of a praise, particularly in the written form. I work for a restaurant company--trust me, I know.

So this is me voicing my approval of the autogrant AA idea. I have over 11,000 AAs and don't feel in any way that this is a "slap in the face." (Thanks to whoever made that post.)

Again, people are quick to complain and slow to praise. That's why the poll option in-game had far different results.

What about AA's we DON'T want.

I tank with my Beastlord, so I specifically have NOT gotten Spell Casting Subtlety so he can keep agro better.

I'm going to repeat my suggestion, Passive AA's need a 'toggle switch' in place of the Hotkey button to allow them to be disabled. Gelid Claw, Twincast etc. can do the wrong damage to a raid mob, for example.

We need to be able to choose not to use an ability, or it becomes a disability and liability.

past time to lock this thread and open multiples dealing with each part

A thought i had last night RE:AA

Grant each Gold account 40-60 100-AA tokens (make sure they are flagged so they can't get more) that only work if you have <3500 AA spent and these should be no-trade. This accomplished 2 things, You can add to your AA count gradually and if you allocate 100 at a time, you can set up hot keys and get used to some of them before being blasted with thousands (if my alt enchanter suddenly had 2000 more AA's allocated, i wouldnt know which to hot key, which not to, or really how they worked as i only play her occassionally)

Then create an AA "Store AA Experience" make it 25-50 AAs to purchase, req level 100. If you have 50 banked AA and use this ability, they create a tradeable token worth 50 AA. (you can also sell 50 AA tokens in the marketplace). This will make adding AA either a monetary or plat transaction and give something for the max AA/level people to do with left over experience.

An alternative to the Store AA Experience would be make 10/25/50/100 AA tokens and put them on the global drop table (and for sale). the 10 AA would drop the same rate as the old LON cards did and the 100AA would drop at a rate that people are posting 2 months later saying they don't drop.

Anyhow, trying to think outside the box

While i am no fan of some of the changes, i absolutely love the feedback and communication the dev team is putting out right now (Piestro must have a sweet post count) on numerous topics on the boards, good stuff chaps, more of that please.

Perhaps a little more feedback in the class forums