Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

Its a bad move to GIVE aa's.... Any parent with a child has learned that GIVING things makes them less valuable to the child than something they EARNED. Worse, you are removing the learning curve and taking away the joy experienced when you see the changes from the new aa's you just earned.

When Eq was down after the hack, my whole guild, 72 people, went off and tried other games. (we all were in ventrillo every day) We hated the three letter game... we found the game similar to EQ with 4 letters and settled there.. Beautiful Graphics, great story lines, ok quests with good rewards. But as soon as EQ was back, we all shifted back too. Think we lost one person to the new game. Why did we return?

Eq has historically given a person the best FEELING of accomplishment when you finish something. It gives you the most to complain about and the most to enjoy. Its not the graphics that keep a person in a game. I have six gold accounts in my family. I don't plan on leaving unless this game reaches a No Challenge point. Right now its headed that direction.

Real life does not give you that feel-good-feeling most of the time. But in EQ you can get it on the hour, or in a day. So people play. Again, I say: any parent with a child has learned that GIVING things makes them less valuable to the child than something they EARNED.

So make the 85/4000 server and see how many folks it attracts and then how many stay, 1 month, 2 or a year THEN decide to make it a server wide choice...offer free transfers to that server if you want to test the waters.

Too hard is not good but too easy is also not good.

Please. Think a bit more before proceeding.

So... you'd rather the new players that may come in have a horrible experience and leave, leading to the decline of the game?

Maybe you and your experienced and talented friends could instead welcome the new players and help them learn how to play well, leading to a fun and enriching experience for all. This is, after all, how a good community can grow.

You are talking like they take away the feeling of accomplishment altogether. But they are only diminishing it for the sake of making the achievement not impossible for a large number of new/returning players. The point of balance there is not to diminish it too much while not giving those people too little.

I think making a separate server for it would be a good idea for new players, but what about the returning ones who want to resume playing their original chars with their old friends?

Where did I say that?

I was responding to Beryon's claim that autogranting each year all AAs 4 expansions back would remove any incentive to AA. I was pointing out that about the only people who would be satisfied with sitting around to wait for their 'freebie AA grant' would be people getting 10-15 AA a month, i.e., people who don't really play. Just about everyone else (i.e., people who actually do play the game) would still be strongly incentivized to AA.

Agreed. Autogranting the AA's isn't an effort to cater to those folks. It is an effort on SOE's part to cater to people who want to return to (or start) playing the game the game who don't have a sugar daddy to help them get to 100 with 3-4k AAs (which even for those folks will take 1-2 months), make them not a complete liability to any group they may join as they try to make connections in the game,. to reduce the slope on the mountain they need to climb.

Sure, you and I did it uphill both ways in the snow. Along the way, though, there was a pretty vibrant player community to make the trip a lot more enjoyable; we had a lot of companions and peers at a comparable level. Even with the AA curve, I don't see a lot of folks wanting to come back if they don't have a sugar daddy willing to babysit them. This mitigates that somewhat.

As an afterthought to my prior post - Rogues will need some other viable method of solo/moloing if Assassinate is changed as outlined in the OP, though I believe that's already under consideration.

Have you ran through a batch of the old zones to try and level up your Journeyman's Compass? Excluding others working on their compass or being power-leveled, how many people did you 'meet along the way' there?

This isn't like 10 years ago where you could go to most zones and start yelling 'LFG!' and get a group going in relatively short order.

[I'm not even going to touch the 'They will play with themselves' part. ]

I like the AA change. They are granting up to level 85, not giving away everything for free (I'm not sure why anyone is whining like SOE is giving away all AA's, perhaps some reading comprehension is lacking). So, as you level, you will automatically get all your AA's as you get up to level 85 (minus a few). You will still incrementally get AA's and have to learn them as you get them, you just don't have to put in the extra hours grinding for them -- making it less time-consuming to see newer content. This of course only applies to characters that aren't powerleveled, but they would be getting all their relevant AA's without having to learn them anyway, so that's a non-issue.

However, it would be amazing to see some more class-specific tutorials on class defining AA's. I know this would take some dev time and money, but that would seriously improve the gameplay of people coming up in levels (with or without the AA grant; this is really a separate issue). Instead of having to go out and learn the mechanics by testing them out on your own (even though I think that this is part of the fun of new abilities), you could save a little time by being guided through how they work. For instance, think about bard's FM: You could design a mission where the mobs are very easy when gotten solo, but give them assistance buffs that scale with how many are aggroed. Then you have a progression of harder and harder to split mobs (add spell-casters, etc), and then at the end you get an achievement or something so you can link it and show that you've gone through the SoE Pulling Certification Course (tm). Think of the opporunities! Pet Control Certification Course, Multiple Mob Tanking Certification Course, Aggro Reduction Certification Course, et cetera...

I have been playing since 2000. I'm a Ranger and have max AAs. So I'm as much impacted by the AA auto grant and AA ability changes as anyone.

I am fine with all these changes. I think the auto AAs are a great idea along with lvl 85 Heroic Characters.

Reading these threads makes me kind of sad, realizing how many self centered, myopic kooks EQ has playing the game. Man they came out of the woodworks to post here.

Reminds me of people standing on the deck of a ship that is sinking, and refusing to pickup the pail that is given to them to help bail water. They won't do it because the ship they've been on for 15 years never had a pail. They will stand there stamping their feet and throwing a tantrum all the way to the bottom of the ocean. Convinced they were right.

If auto granting AAs and lvl 85 characters even has a minor impact on bringing new players into the game and/or make it easier for characters to catch up to being "useful" in the group or raid games, it is good for the game. So many players out there that could potentially bring new blood to guilds' raiding force, but currently have an almost insurmountable mountain to climb to get a decent amount of AAs.

I think it will also encourage long time players that are bored with their main toons to possibly switch to other classes as their "main" in a raid guild. This could be a healthy effect too. Much shorter slope to climb if you want to change main raid toons.

I feel in no way "slapped in the face" or diminished my AA accomplishment over the years. And I sure as heck don't expect any "compensation". My compensation will hopefully be a more healthy EQ player base.

This game isn't anything like it was 10 years ago. Do you see hundreds of people looking and getting groups in current content? No it rarely happens. People play with friends or guildmates. They box. They use mercs. The game is the same from 1-100. People are fooling themselves that the game is better 90-100 and that levels 1-85 are some how different and bad, so lets let them skip up to level 85 so they can finally play. Thats bs.

So again if someone doesn't like level 1-85 and grinding out AA or gear or augs when is actually easier and when they actually get a decent return for their time and effort then they don't like the game, period. That stuff never changes and in fact becomes harder to do as you are required to grind out every slot of gear and every aug must be up to snuff and you must know how to play pretty well in current stuff or you fail you must have every AA even if the last 15 ranks cost 500 aa and only provided a .001% more to dodge.

I am not the EQ expert, but I know people. 1> Few and far between are the people who, having been given something, value that gift for long periods of time. 2> Give people a sense of accomplishment, and they will work hard to seek further sense of accomplishment. 3> People who quit on something, may go back to it for a short time if they are "given" a reason to go back, but that return will almost invariably be short lived as they are not the "stick with it" type of people. 4> If you cheapen the accomplishments of others, they will find other avenues of finding that feeling of accomplishment. 5> End result, you lose the short termers, AND the long termers...... This is a stupid idea, and one that will backfire. They think it is a good idea, and is going to go forward, however, they will regret it in six months when they have lost many of the core player base, and a vast majority of the "quick fixers" who will log on for a couple months then quit when the going gets a bit tough again. I will say it again. Change the AAXP bonus to a higher amount for longer, give people a sense of accomplishment, allow the game to be (mostly) what it always has. You will gain a few more long term subscribers and keep current player base. If you want to keep people playing longer, come up with a way to make AA's never ending (one AA = 1 hp, something like that, give people SOME thing to keep striving for, for those who have maxxed AA, no that might not be THE answer, but something like that.) Plus, I know LONG term players that are cancelling accts, and I will miss them. Maybe I will finally quit for good as well. I can tell you this, this is my FIRST and LAST mmorpg. When I am done with EQ, I am done PERIOD. I have never played another MMORPG, and never even been interested. I love this game, it is the one, the only and the best. No, it is not as pretty as some of the others, but I know what kind of quality I had to uphold to play well in this game. I know that I have never heard of another game that quite met this games' superb balance of fairly difficult play with solid progression and continuously achieveable goals. Sony will do this, don't doubt it, they have their minds set, but this is a wonderful failure of foresight.

Said it before and I'll say it again. I love the changes, and I can't wait. It'll make the game fun again for me, along with many of my friends. It'll also make playing my alts and new classes I've never played before fun without sacrificing hundreds of hours of my life. A few of my RL friends will be signing up to play because of these changes.

Pulling people through this game and holding their hand while doing it, isn't going to improve server populations. What happens when a new player groups with top in raid geared players? They sit there and essentially do nothing... They don't learn anything, because mobs aren't alive long enough for them to do anything.

My typical group make up
SK, Necro, Bard, Wizard, Shaman, (sometimes a 2nd wizard, or a real cleric)

I'm glad you and your talented friends started playing eq the most efficient way possible and never made mistakes or had a lack of knowledge, I for one am glad that you are not gonna group with new people and give them your sucky elitist attitude and ruin the game experience for them and everyone else they come in contact with . If i paid 8 grand for a toyota camry back in 2000 and then moved up to a bentley i would not begrudge someone giving a new player a camry to learn how to drive 14 years later.

If you really have to go forward with some type of AA auto-granting (which is still a bad idea), why don't you do something like this. After people do the prereqs aa's from earlier expansions, auto-grant the AA's from SoF/SoD/UF. This will allow people to see the impact the earlier AA's have on their character, still require some actual work on the part of people, allow people to utilize the AA bonus with AA lines they care about and give them a boost when the AA costs really start to jump.

Im glad you went the way you did with the SK as I would have hated to leave the character I have played (on and off since '99) and EQ (again).

UHM no do not make decap same as ranger an rogue if there is no difference in the mobs then all three should just end up head shot an all be called ranger doing that removes any difference in class an just causes more issues by slamming more of the people with the same abilities inta closer proximity of one another which will only lead ta waa waa waaa he took my mob

People who opt in should get a return package that gives them experience modified Jewlery that allows them an extra bonus on experience up to level 85 and 4k AA.

Make an AA guide to help these people understand the proper paths of their chosen play style. IE, Tanking would light up those abilities best for survivability and rank them on importance. Can do the same for healing and damage.

This will help people learn the AA's they are getting and will hopefully help understand why they are built that way. My wife tried to play EQ and gave up saying the AA tree's where to bloated and confusing. I am slowing getting her back into it by helping her side by side. Unfortunately we all don't have that kind of help to make these people understand.

I don't have the patience to trawl through 83 pages of feedback to see if this has been said, but please leave Lich Sting alone. There is absolutely no reason to mess with it and cause further problems getting the number of counters right. Lich Sting may enable SKs to survive at the very beginning of a swarm, but it's the Mortal Coil procs that keep us alive to the end. If you must kill swarming, then change Mortal Coil.

Messing with Lich Sting could potentially cause problems with other aspects of the game - surviving a couple of adds, surviving using AE aggro whilst raid adds are locked down, etc. By changing this you are potentially weakening SKs in all aspects of the game, not just swarming.

As for the AA granting thing, I'm pretty indifferent towards it, but I will say for anyone that's ever used cheat codes for games, did it make them more fun? I've found that taking the challenge or goals away from a game makes it become boring pretty fast. Will this have the same effect on EQ? Who knows. I do think a better solution would be to tie it to existing quests. 10AAs per quest (as an example) over 100s of quests would add up pretty quickly, but would still give people a sense of progress and earning them. Maybe it would also get people visiting older under-utilized zones.

If the intent is to improve this game and make it great for the long haul, not just a quick cash grab at whatever expense later down the line.

Make the low AA xp bonus double. Make the cap effected double. Make the banked cap higher at lower levels. I think its 500% bonus xp to 4K aa with 30 banked AA so make it 1000% bonus xp for low aa to 7K AA with the ability to bank 50 or 70 AA. Returning players, alts, those stuck in the mud all get the mountain cut in half but they still have to actually play and manually purchase those items which helps somewhat for them to remember what they purchased and what it might be used for. They also must buy a gold sub for a longer period of time so EQ wins. They become invested in their toons as they worked at it for a bit and are more apt to stick around longer buying heroic armor, xp potions, illusions and such. You don't offend 25-50% of your playbase costing you potential players you already have.

Make larger amounts of current content to keep the players you already have satisfied which in turn also brings players back because man this game is still going great. Make large additions of AA and spells to keep the players you already have happy and busy. Stop gear resets. Stop saying we can't provide you with enough content so we won't even try so you get bored and quit paying after a month or two and finish everything. Go back to locking some zones behind flagging and faction, its a delay tactic just don't make this take to long or be totally stupid in nature. The flagging book from VoA was good you click an item after completing X amount of raids or group missions and then you eventually can move on to the next tier. Go back to making some content require certain classes or entire groups to complete, again just don't go overboard and make this apply to everything or have it even show up at all in early zones. Go back to requiring some sort of faction or progression to get spells and discs, just make sure you don't lock key heals, mez or abilities behind stuff. Faction, flags and such are not bad as long as they are not to severe or overly done for everything.

We can argue until blue in the face but this game has lost more players because of gear resets, taking away players options by forcing them into current content only, by removing the sense of progression on their toons then "the mountain" scaring people away. I do not care what any manipulated poll or exit comments tell you. I quit due to the lack of content in CoTF and the general dumbing down of the game with my 3 accounts and never got an exit poll as it wasn't working when I quit. So thats another thing fix the bugs that matter. Swarming needed to be addressed, UCS needs to be addressed, burstained needs to be addressed, tuning of some missions needs to be addressed, tuning of some raids needs to be addressed, tuning of some achievements needs to be addressed, tuning of some classes needs to be addressed. Spending days, weeks or even months of times for imaginary or possible customers at the expense of actual paying customers is bad business.

Otherwise you will continue to hear whining and see lots of people in my current state. They love the game and will continue to enjoy the past playing levels 1-95 and farming all the older content they enjoyed for free. Refusing to continue to pay to support what you guys are doing with current money or the general direction of watering down the game for more subs at the cost of those that kept the lights on for 14+ years. The game shouldn't be designed for the elite or hardcore or be made hard for hards sake. But it shouldn't be designed for the i want everything now or instant gratification crew either with mobs tasks or raids falling over even if you dont have the gear, aa or knowledge to play your class. Find the middle ground and make a few tiers for each playstyle and stop negating the older content and you will get more money then you expect from any of these supposedly good for the game changes.

I am uncertain of this but from the way Xiaoyu phrased his post, be believes that the refresh on our Headshot, Assassinate and Decapitate buttons are too short and all SOE would have to do to fix the problem is lengthen the refresh to 10 seconds. >.>