Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

Addendum. Apparently, I've been stripped of the two awards I received yesterday and am now back to New Member. So be it. The point remains. My account(s) are not "new". I just never felt the need to be involved in this until SoE decided to strip me of all of the peer-respect I once had for grinding my 4250 AAs prior to level 90.

100% spot on.

The title under your name is usually dependent on your post counts everybody.
I assume you all use other forums also????

Piestro,
From what I am seeing, and forgive me if I am wrong, is that Mages and SKs are the culprit to the issues, with Ranger, Berzerker, and Rogue being the next in line.
SO in that sense the nerfs to the other classes have absolutely no meaning, unless you are trying to balance things out across the board (mind you, from reading the feedback from here and the other discussion is seems it is being handled extremely poorly so far), or to prep the system for removal of Power-leveling entirely to be prepared for these "Heroic characters" (truly? whats so heroic? they are bought, have earned nothing and those that use them have no idea whatsoever how to use them). You are forcing others to play with total newbs that are the same power and abilities as those that have worked hard, for years, paid hundreds and even thousands of dollars to get where they are at?
During these posts there have quite a few ideas brought up that have significant merit on how to address this proposed change, and how to implement it in a much better way. Using some of these ideas you would remove, more than likely, 80% of the issues with the proposed AA-grant.

Here is a Rehash to a couple:
1.) you are not including a couple AA in the Grant. Good, those 2 stated so far needed to be removed. You should also remove Salvage, its not an AA used for adventuring in any way, its an AA associated with tradeskills and the economies of each server. Certain other AA do not work as well as previous ranks / versions. There are too many of these to list here without taking a whole page of this discussion to go over everything.

1. One of the proposed changes, by players, was to limit the grants also to General and archtype tabs, leaving the Class tab alone. While this has merit, I hope some realize that there are AA in the Archtype that should have been placed into Class. For instance, Necromancer: they have Critical DoT AA in both tabs, 4 different named that are all basically part of the same line. These need to be consolidated and be in Class. ( Critical Affliction, Affliction Mastery, Blood Tithe, and Greater Blood Tithe). You also have a couple of lines for Critical DoT damage that should be consolidated and placed in Class. Why for this particular AA? because not all casters have Dots and its not an Archtype, its Class specific, Shaman, Druid, Necro are the ones that really do DoTs, thats 2 priests and a caster, definitely not Archtype.
2. Having the Granted AA not count towards Spent AA totals. This makes total sense. Why? Cause we didn't buy them, they were handed to us, we didn't allocate them to certain places, where we felt the need was. These are freebies now. Some of these should have been implemented long ago, or removed entirely when certain things were introduced to the game. These would be things like Innate stats (those that would increase base stats, not the caps). These should've been implemented or removed a while back once players were able to max out their stats in the 40's level range due to Defiant / consigned gear. With this, the Planar Power and Stat cap AA should be scaled down and start from level 51 instead of 61. you would not even need to increase the ranks for this. as some levels have multiple ranks of each. Would would be in line with the normal 5 stat cap increase per level players get from straight leveling anyways. There are many other instances where this type of thinking would work and create a much better system for all, while also reducing peoples anxiety over changes. Its a rework that basically does what you want, getting new toons up to par faster, while preserving what makes EQ great, the Journey.(not to mention SOE and the Devs have proven they can and they HAVE done this with consolidating other AA in the past).

Now that the AA grant issue is done with, on to classes.
Beam swarming.
Basic mechanic is to gather as many mobs as possible to Lag out the server so the mobs stop and Mage / Wizard can go to work. Usually having Bard help for pulling or Run speed.
SK Swarming - has no intent on Lagging server, indeed this actually hinders the process as you try to get all them obs into a pile before turning around to engage.
Fixes(choose 1 or more, any combination):

1. Limit Agro'd Mobs allows by a grp to 12-15. not only will this save the server resources, but also limited training. Anything less and Chanter Crowd control is all but removed and you'd need to give them a new toy to make up for it.(issue here is coding for limiting numbers as certain events and raids would not work with this).
2. Limit Spell Targeting. Limit to 12 as stated is good, absolutely removes Beam lag.
3. SK Mortal coil is the culplit for Swarming, ANY sk can tell you that. It allows Melee lifetap/return and gives AC. The issue is that It procs on mob kill if you score the death blow, at a 25% chance to proc. Its MADE for the possibility of chain pulling or multiple mob pulling. That's its intended purpose. Rework for Charges/proc limit as stated. ok, but keep it in line with Mage beam limitations, of 12-15 mobs, for duration of buff. so finding 15 mobs and with this effect up and the effect lasts until the last mob drops and still has a couple procs like. Proc numbers around 2k-2.2k would be sufficient for this when you figure in full buff extension. This would drop at exponentially faster rates the more mobs that are in the pile.
4. Change SK Mortal coil / remove the ability and add a new ability in its place. This new ability would give an AC buff and increases Lifetap return from spells, has a charge/proc limit of 1500-2000 ( this part as a secondary buff) for Melee lifetaps. Now you keep the AC, and get spell lifetaps increased for duration of first buff and you receive some melee lifetaps in the second buff, but definitely not enough to swarm in numbers that are currently being employed. This keeps SKs in their current roles but removes the ability to swarm hundreds of mobs, now down to 12-20(depending on Levels, gear, AA).

Rangers, Rogues, Berzerkers:

1. Rangers Headshot, Rogues Assassinate(Anatomy), Berzerkers Decap: scale up the level limit, as stated, but no more than to 95, with a limit to mobs who have 90% health or less. This places abilities into group content.
2. Make Rangers HS and Rogue Assassinate work same as Berzerker Decap, on all mob types. This will even the playing field among all 3 and bring them into better balance.
3. Limit Effect proc, as stated, However increase allowed ppm rate to 3 or 4. (with the other suggested changes, this would be in line with current content hp levels and agro issues).
4. Increase number of Ranks of Decap for Berkerkers so be more in line with Rangers and Rogues. this would allow Berzerkers to level up faster earlier on, much as Rangers and rogues have the ability to at current. This would also bring these similar AA lines into similar AA costs which balances them better with each other.

The above changes wouldn't need increased damage modifiers due to their being more group oriented.
Although these changes are only suggestions, they are inline with the current plans, for the most part. Please look over. I am sure most of this would alleviate tension between players while at the same time allowing you to correct server instability, While being fair to more classes. Changes do need to be made, but not as much or as severe as has been stated.
Let me know what you think. I AM awaiting a reply.

Is this going to be on one toon per account, or any amount of toon per account?

Since everyone seems to be replying to my post about seeing new members, i was replying to someone else agreeing that yes there are alot of new accounts here, who have been playing for a long time and now have a reason to come post. I am one of them

My evidence to support this is in THEIR HANDS and in front of their face! They send out an email with a survey pop up for every subscription cancelled, trust me, I love everquest as much as you do, but I'm on the other side of te fence on this and there WILL ALWAYS be opposition in life, I accept yours now stop bashing me for having mine. All they have to do is look at how many accounts are being cancelled with time still remaining on them since the announcement, there are your numbers.

Are you auto granting AAs not tied to an expansion?

Can you please confirm that the toggle will be defaulted to off when this goes live and will not get changed when I level, I'm enjoying leveling up some alts in DoHD and DoN and I do not want them maxing out AAs until they have completed the content.

If when I'd leveled up to 80 and decided I didn't want to grind out the AA's anymore and switched the toggle on, would I get all AA's up to level 80 or would my AA's be 4 expansions behind level 80 content?

The changes don't bother me that much, though I do think the AA count given away is a bit on the high side and would rather have seen 100 AA given away per level or something, rather than a blanket "every AA in X number of expansions". The big difference in allowing players to purchase AAs themselves is they have to look at what they are purchasing and are more likely to understand the new AAs they have gained. A level 100 gaining thousands of AAs at once will not know which are the good ones and which are the bad. If they already had some they may not be able to tell which ones they have just gained and which they already had, especially if they need to make hotkeys to trigger them.

The AA changes won't affect me if they go in or not, as a wizzy the AE changes won't affect me either, I'm more interested to hear

When is the next part of CotF going live and will it have new zones and AA?

Honestly, if you are going to quit, quit. No biggie, if this is what makes you take your ball and go home that's fine. That strawman argument, and the strawman of "EQ is going to die, Gloom and Doom, Gloom and Doom!" has been used since, oh, Velious sometime if I remember correctly.

It simply won't change the dev's mind. If you have some reason, some rationale as to why auto-granting some new character 4 expansion old (some of which are certainly obsolete, some perhaps not) AAs, then please share. I don't see it. The AA changes here won't affect my play style, the capabilities of my character, my ability to contribute to my groups, fellowship, guild, and raids at all.

What other people have should not affect your sense of pride in your accomplishments. If it does, then I'm sorry, you probably will be happier in other games, and good luck to you out there.

For all those who say that they are going quit or the vets who are mad that about the new aa grants making all the work they have done worthless.

Go look in a mirror. You are what are cause the issues with these changes not the dervs. The dervs are doing what needs to be done to keep the game going.

They have access to more info then we do here on the boards.(post here/in-game feedback/feedback form the boards/emails/etc). The feedback/info they have is telling them that they have to do this to keep the majority of the new/returning members.

This not the 1st major change they have done to keep the game up to date and keeping it alive. Mercs come to mind to deal with the issue of getting groups. Balancing out of classes so that you can switch out tank classes or healer classes without it effecting groups


And this is coming form someone who has played sense kunark so I have been here though thick and thin of the game.

what Kogon said as well sept i have 7 accounts 1999, 2001, three in 2004 an two more started in 2013
all have been canceled an as far as new member goes some reason thats what i get ta be again as last i posted was in 02 an since the site has changed it so seems has my posting statues.

Swarming is an exploit and beaming is an exploit. I for one am quite happy they are nerfing them, although it did take an awful darn long time for them to address the issue. There has always been something wrong with an SK grabbing every single mob in the back half of plane of fire and killing them all at once when a similarly equipped wizard of the same level could only quad 4 at best... there was never any problem with wizard quadding even when we set up "quadding groups" and had wizards take turns pulling groups of 4... 200 mobs on the other hand.. is quite a bit off the scale. I leveled all my AA the hard way by soloing or in groups.. and have been maxxing out my AA very quickly each expansion without any grinding at all.. solely by doing Partisan/ merc tasks/ missions and if you still arent maxxed hunter achievs. My max AA is 10k for a wizard and I am sitting at 15k spent because it maxxes out so fast each expansion I have nothing to spend it on but glyphs. If you are whining about you arent getting AA fast enough or you are quitting because you hate grinding it's your fault for not having any imagination or just not playing the game as intended. No one has to really do any grinding.. heck doing SOD hunter got me a thousand AAs and they were almost all light blue mobs!

I suggest once again that there be some kind of reward for veteran players or well any player that does not opt for the autogranted AAs... the reward could only be accessible after you had completed all the AAs up to the point that any were granted and it would be an achiev.. with some kind of reward.. like a title/ other colored title, new veteran AA, special skill or ability or even illusion or illusion with an ability. Something cool that would make people think twice about accepting the auto AAs.

Even if there are people out there who don't agree with everything stated in this post.....this is the kind of thinking and constructive ideas that should be posted here. All of the negativity needs to turn to constructive posts. I am not saying that those who are upset do not have the right to voice their opinions. In the end it is posts like this that will be read with any credibility. Thanks Leeroy.

The cleric changes go against everything a cleric does to solo. Taking damage away from a cleric...really?

No threats are being made, brother, and I have stuck through many Many changes, as I posted on the original thread, I know the game can't be what it was when we did VT shard camps and had suits of corpse run gear, I know that is lost but I love what is left and want to retain that, there will be no new players to grind aa with on my alts whom I don't want to level for example.

I play a rogue and I don't really like the change to assassinate at all, but I understand it being a necessary fix where change is due to prevent larger problems, I would accept the nerf albeit opposed, but the grant is another story entirely.

Many people are losing the desire to play because of this, yes changes are a part of life, I embrace that fact. But as I said before, this is far from an update or a little fix. This changes the game -85 dynamically and if you don't see that, well I've explained it on one of the posts with several likes on the last thread.

Agreed. When people have issues with my directions at work, I tell them to bring me solutions instead of complaints. A complaint without reason or alternatives is meaningless.

To the Devs:
Re: AA "grant"

I posted before and Risiko reminded me, did you guys at SOE not learn a thing from SWG's NGE?

Dumb the game down, people quit, game dies.

I warned you then (my handle was Aprry as it used to be here) and I am warning you again.

I, and the vast, vast, majority of people playing this game are not pre-teens and are not here because it is easy. The people that want it easier should find another game.

If you need to make more money, do it the old fashioned way, EARN it. I can tell you doing this AA thing will cost you many accounts and possibly the franchise, but go ahead for that quick cash bump from the 1337 dud35, who quit after leveling out, then the ship sinks.

If you want to give gold accounts more value, then, please sit down, put your chin on your fist, and think of something else.

played on and off since 2001, mostly on.

Glad you liked the post, took me a long time to gather my thoughts, read all the other posts, let my own personal feelings and motivations subside and when writing this, to work on it over and over to word it correctly... And i see a couple of typos still... Sheesh

I had to log today someone was beem kiting and made game play impossible. this needs to be fixed people need to work on getting exp the old fashion way they need to earn it not buy it. I support the changes hope they come soon!

I *AM* a returning player who has not played in 10 years. I was ENJOYING getting my AAs. I remember a game that was challenging. It is not challenging now, but at least it took a little while to get to the end. The proposed changes make it LESS challenging. It is simple. I don't know what the hell you are talking about.