Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

I can only speak of as a ranger, but I do not like these changes to HS/Assassinate/Decap.

I don't like these abilities working on lv 99 mobs. I could see it causing many problems, such as procing a HS while pulling.

I would prefer these abilities to stay capped at lv 88, just remove the humanoid restriction on HS/Assassinate so they are more in line with Decap.

Oh my God, someone gets it. That's exactly the point. The community and groups that formed from this game at creation were the bedrock of what made this game great. I'm still close friends with many people who I met ingame 14-15 years ago. Call it an experiment if you will, but I'm willing to bet that between all active servers, there's enough people that feel like I do to populate ONE server with that kind of ruleset. And if the server ever fell so low on active population that it was unsustainable, SOE would be able to shut it down with absolute proof that all the changes they made were what the players wanted.

Outstanding gentlemen!
I am so happy to hear that aa's will be optional instead of forced, and sk's will still be able to tank. Also very pleased with the updates to headshot/assassination lines which keeps them relevant to game play. These were all around excellent decisions, thank you so much for your willingness to compromise and your obviously sincere and diligent efforts to keep this game as awesome as it always has been, you guys rock!

I'm willing to bet that 99% of the people that say they are rage quitting are lying just like the NTTB fiasco. If all the people that quit that said they were over that, everyone would be wondering where all the warriors went.

Now that I've logged in on my cleric's account instead of my baby SK box/alt...

It's already been pointed out that I'd been reading posts from both threads all day and my brain was fuzzy. Sorry about the mix-up.

This is feeling more and more like we're being told, " Thanks for all your cash over the years but, we don't care a bit about all of that. We want short-term burst subscriptions from new people to line our pockets with."

I've offered a suggestion that benefits EVERYONE both now and moving forward. Alienating the folks like me who've payed to play this game for YEARS is ignorant. We've brought new players, talked old friends into returning and supported EQ for a very long time. We need to know that WE'RE appreciated too.

With the total lack of EQ advertisement by Sony, how do you think new folks learn about EQ? Clairvoyance? NO! The veterans recommend it! I know I was recommending it to friends LONG before the refer-a-friend reward was available.

Don't kick us in the teeth and make us feel completely unappreciated.

This is a simple idea and might be pointless but here goes. From the perspective of top tier raiding guild who's requirements have always read thing like "Level 100 - minimum 5K AA well placed, etc" there is soon going to be no way to distinguish (until in combat) the char who had gained their AA grinding and learned the uses / effects of each and the char that bought their toon got a large auto grant and grabbed a few more via PL. How about giving a different color name to players who reject the AA grant and get them via grinding. Different color names are already built into system (i.e. hand back the discord book and get a red name) so should not involve too much work - probably just a flag gets set if you press the auto grant button.

And before someone jumps on this - I am well aware that just because you grind them still does not guarantee you know how to play your char (or that you were not pl'd) - but it switches the odds a bit and distinguishes the workers from the buyers.

Opinions ?

Cleric

• We considered a cap of 30 targets on PBAE nukes but ultimately did not change them due to the inherent danger the caster is placed in. If they become a problem we may have to revisit this in the future.
• The Ward of the Divine line of spells had a cap of 80 procs added. This means the level 97 version now provides a maximum potential of 186,480 damage per 2026 mana cast.
• The Shining Rampart line of spells has changed in function.
  • Added a cap of 40 procs and increased its mana cost in a manner similar to the Shaman Lingering Sloth line. This means the level 99 version of the spell can now heal for a base of 97,240 HP at a cost of 939 mana.
  • The proc rate for this line of spells will now decrease on targets that are below the level of the spell. Like the similar restriction on the Skin of the Reptile line, this is intended to provide a good boost at the expected levels and a much lesser boost when applied against trivial content.
  • We have separated the damage absorption buff and the proc buff. All ranks of Shining Rampart, Shining Armor, and Shining Bastion will now trigger-cast Shining Defense, a spell which absorbs 10 percent of incoming damage. It has no damage cap, but will fade after its bearer takes 2000 hits. It has a player level for focus purposes but is not memorized on its own.
  • Changed the spell icon for the 'proc' portion of the buff so that it is not confused with the HP absorption effect.
• The Divine Retribution AA line had a cap of 40 procs added, even though the short duration means this limit will probably not be reached. This is meant as a "future-proofing" method to prevent future upgrades from causing problems.

As for cleric changes i would like to see the timers increase on the ward and sb line if your adding a proc limit. They already have to be recasted frequently when soloing, grouping, or raiding. Also, what about the recourse of life line aa. Really one of the only times i see that proc is when i am soloing or moloing and i have sb on. With sb dropping more frequently this is going to affect the time frame to actually get a recourse of life proc. I dont think many cleric even use the stun spells that much, more like never. Most mobs resist the stun and plus the cool down, cant afford to have that spell slot wasted. 23 ranks of recourse of life now useless, thanks.
Ward of Divine don't need to be changed. Only thing a cleric could kill with ward by itself is a mob thats half his/her lvl. Its not like cleics are running around killing mobs with just ward, you have to incorporate many other things.
Even with a proc limit i'm still going to go pull a bunch of lower lvl mobs to farm ts/quest items.
You are hurting clerics more overall by changing these than you are helping the community with this change. We need upgrades not downgrades. When i solo i don't heal myself for the kill.
Instead of punishing the whole community why don't you just investigate and take action on the players who are truly disrupting the server.

I'm sure SOE already knows the number of people that have cancelled the recurring accounts since the send you an email once you have done so. It would be interesting to know what those numbers are, but like you said, most people, unlike myself, are just crying wolf and SOE is banking on that.

Can we see the numbers on how many new accounts were made solely to post in here? And how many of those are duplicate/alt accounts?

4pm PST to 11:30 PM PST is prime playing time.

Global sever networks run on UTC.

Gonna go ahead and throw my idea out there again for you Piestro/Devs (I posted it in the other 95 page thread and it maybe got missed)...for the veterans that want compensated..

Add a second rank of the Blessing of the Devoted veteran reward (for those unfamiliar, this is the 14th vet reward, it lowers the reuse time on all other veteran rewards by 25%). Most players won't have the first rank of this yet from regular play and its actually nice to have lesson on a 16 hour reuse instead of a 20 hour reuse, etc.

For implementation, you could have the system check the player's AA achievements and if a specific one is met by a pre-determined date (the day before the live patch or whatever), the system grants them the rank of BotD. This number could be 4k, it could be higher, that's up to development to decide where to draw the line in the sand.

For the players that already have a rank of this veteran AA, it will still be nice. Lesson will get bumped down to a 10 hour reuse, which imo isn't outrageous in either direction, Intensity will be a 2 hour reuse instead of 3 hour reuse (its 4 hour base), Throne of Heroes will be a 36 minute reuse ( I think). None of which is game breaking...and that's what we are shooting for here "significant, but not game breaking".

I would very much prefer this over a title or illusion item...anyone else feel the same?

After all, its called a veteran reward for a reason, right?

Couple things I'd like to say based on the proposed changes.

1) Mass Killing for whatever reason.
Anything that is disruptive to players and not intended by developers should be addressed accordingly.

2) Auto-Granting AAs
I don't think this is a good idea, because AAs were initially intended to allow players an additional route to further advance their character and content should NOT have been developed around AAs. You shouldn't penalize us (yes, you are hurting the community by doing this) for going that route! Additionally, by auto granting AAs you would essentially force people to run before they could even walk and that's always a recipe for disaster.

I think a better solution would be to increase the rate at which AAXP is earned until 8K AAs. You could even make it FULL-GROUP (not including mercs) specific to further promote grouping like the old days. Think about it, many people return for nostalgia sake and leave because its no longer there - by promoting grouping, you would give people what they want AND line your pockets with subscriptions! At the end of the day, its a win-win for everyone.

That's cool. You might "for real be quitting" but I sincerely doubt the majority will.

Either way, it's all posturing and foot-stomping because "x" players didn't get their way. No sweat off my back.

Wah? /bye

I click my Warrior sword every now and then to make myself feel better.

That sounds wrong.

I see alot that say new member under there post name

Mine says New Member, but I am running a Gold account that I opened in 2000. I signed up for Forum posting for the first time when this change was announced, because no change that SOE has made has ever infuriated me more than this one. I believe that this is the same with most of the New Member accounts.

Pointless ! - most old returning players who had no reason to post here before have had to create a new forum account to post now for some reason - I have seen plenty say this and it also happened to me. And duplicate alt accounts are a larger part of the revenue stream than a solo account. Even the IP address thing was flogged yesterday ! - Family playing = same IP, University Halls could be 100 players same IP.

Actually, you don't technically need a game account at all to make an account here and post. That's what I was getting at. All you need is an email

Just banning folks with the same IP would also screw families that all play on the same network at home, folks that play on laptops at coffee shops while chatting with friends, etc. Besides, boxing adds more revenue as well as allowing folks to play when they can't find other groups.

A better answer would to make mercs a lot less appealing than a live player. That way, Clerics like me might actually be able to get more than an occasional (rare) group without having to box.