Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

I see people argue that its not needed..... but how many of those screaming that they should not change it are playing level 100's? How many keep posting that they are max AA and its not fair? You are not going to be directly affected by giving AA's to low level players/New Players or Alts. I have seen many players in game support this because of the time sink that AA farming has done to the game. At low levels when there is no Group game and the game is a solo game... Having a time sink that can take up weeks at a time is not a way to bring people back to the game. its better to get them up to where everyone else is so they can group and make friends. This is how you keep a game going, Ignoring the problem that new players/returning players have had is not constructive if you will not offer a suggestion.

More of the same is not the way to go, this is a great fix for many players. You dont like it thats fine, Im pretty sure SOE has already counted on about 1-2% decrease in population from those who rage quit over it. But they also expect to see a 10% or more in revenue generated by the new/returning players who come back and also from people with Free accounts who will pay for Subs to get that Big AA jump. This is smart descision that has a positive effect on the game.

Is there no way to just give them credit for making maps?
I know they are permitted to host events and hand out rewards supplied by SOE.
Eh, sorry this is really off-topic for this thread..

https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...developer-updates.207587/page-98#post-3048657

That is assuming all swarming takes place in Kaesora Library or locations with mobs of equivalent power, which is not true. Try a more current zone, and the outcome will be different.

I appreciate your help, however that answer was 600 posts back and things could be different or wording might have changed that will affect the outcome of those changes, as they did state this is an evolving stance to the issues.

It doesn't make me a moron, I just like doing it the old fashioned way. While I'm not rage quitting, I will not be taking the AA's. I agree it doesn't really matter what other people have or don't have, but I believe the "slap in the face" argument that many of the veterans are complaining about really boils down to the fact that this really feels a bit like "pay to win", something that EQ wasn't ever supposed to become.

On another note, I don't know if I'm the only "moron" who's not taking the free AA's and still going to play, but if there are a few of us, I wonder if this will create yet another group divide. Who wants someone with 200 AA's when even a beginner has over 4000?

That was the best zone for 95's, which is what I said my toon was. You are the one assuming all swarming happens at 100, which is not true, sk's from what, level 80 can do it?

its not that much of a difference b/t CA 30 and CA 50. According to: http://eqaasearch.org/aainfo.asp?search_fd9=Survivability&search_fd12=Paladin

CA 30 = 51% avoidance
CA 50 = 71% avoidance

So even with CA 30 only 1 out of 2 hits land. Thats still pretty damn good.

Off topic;
I can just image that in cartoon form...so funny
I would add:
have we helped the lfg issue?
we now see more lfg request from the 85 to 90 crowd; but the requirement is that the toon clicked yes

I don't think anyone has a problem with making the mountain easier to climb by reducing the time and effort needed to advance. Most are opposed to stuff simply being handed out with no effort. Paying a one time sub for 4-7 thousand AA is not asking for effort its saying here is 50% or more of your AA. Reducing mob spawn times from 7 days to 4 hours is not making the mountain easier to climb its simply removing the mountain. The entire point of this game is continually climbing the mountain making your toon more powerful and well rounded little by little. The game doesn't suddenly get better or easier or you just magically find groups once you get to a certain level.

People are not opposed to helping or speeding up the process we just don't want the game going from one thing to a clone of other games that simply fade away unless they have 9 million subs. They tried gear resets as people said the hurdle of group gear being so far behind was a reason we don't play, it didn't work. They said content being blocked from people because it was behind flags and progression was keeping people from the game so they opened up most old stuff and removed all flags, it didn't work. Free to play has worked very very well but these mythical new people are not new new most of the time, they are players who loved this game for what it was and came back. Yes they don't have the time they used to and want easier but they came back and want Everquest. They don't want Everquest turned into WoW or they simply would have gone and played WoW. There is some middle ground. But its total bs that there are totally new players in mass waiting around to pump all their money into this game if and only if they can play casually and catch up in 2 weeks or that for every 1 or 2 that leave there are 4 eager new players to take their place.

The reason Spell casting Subtelty and the seven tradeskill Mastery AA's are not part of the autogrant is that these can have a detrimental impact under certain circumstances.

There is no detrimental impact, above and beyond the AA count, for the Battle Ready, Combat Medic, Innate stat AA's, Planar stat cap AA's, or Packrat. While the Battle Dready and Combat Medic AA's may not be very beneficial to most people, the stat cap increases will be, and the base stat increases will be once you get your stat caps high enough. Packrat is always beneficial to Monks, although once anyone else gets a high enough Str it becomes rather pointless.

Others have suggested keeping the Mystical Shield and the DoN progression AA's out of the grant, as well. The DoN AA's are not going to be in the grant because they have requirements that are more than just "level up, have a certain previously bought AA, spend AA points". I have not seen any dev comment on Mystical shield, however. The reason for removing these from the grant is that some effects are designed to both help the caster and hurt him at the same time, and resisting the bad part of the effect keeps the good part from taking effect as well.

yes because somehow players will somehow not be good at their class because they dont have to spend weeks on end fighting spawns and content that is trivial and can be done with no actual challenge...

vs

players no longer spending weeks fighting that crap and can now fight group content and work on the major Core AA's that will get them to where you are.


I think your hatred for something you will not need (unless you roll and alt)... is sad. The game is catered to level 85+ playing. There is no game below that level..... its not a slap in the face.. that is reality. Its not a pay to win game.. because of free AA's. It became pay to win when they removed Heck Levels and gave exp increases to kills... If we could go back to killing 30+ dark Blue con mobs to see your Yellow barely move a bit.. then we would be back to the way it should be. But that was removed years ago.... and your argument is roughly the same argument that was given then too.

Sry to see you go , but 6 accounts? i can't keep 1 alive , but thats me ! My Beef is with the HS nerf to 1 per 2minutes i don't see this as overpowered at all ,When you have to hit a lethal bow shot 2-3 times on a -4,5 level mob to kill it , How many Head Shots is it gonna take to kill a level 99 mob at 1 ever two minutes , emm do the math folks this is definatly not Overpowered !! Rant off !

Then what is your suggestion? You say that they should make it easyier... but not remove the mountain. Well how? What should they do to encourge return players and new players that come back and see no one under level 85... and a mountain of AA's and work they will need to do alone to catch up? AA's are needed for Tank classes.. without them they are useless.. You can work a Caster up without that many AA;s and be viable.. hence why so many exist. How do you encourge a person to play a solo Tank? Why is it that somehow you are cloning a game if you try to help players who are not already level 100?

WOW is nothing like EQ... and making the game easyier does not somehow make it into WOW.... Why is this the same argument over and over. Do you even know what WOW is? If you did maybe you would know that there is absolutly nothing similar except that they are both MMO's.

i've been swarming on my sk since i was lvl 70 in the hole. Granted i didn't have 1.5/2.0 at the time i only needed mortal coil and some defensive/offensive aa's to gain about 11-12 aa lesson burn which before the aa bonus curve felt pretty nice

Quit EQ tonight after 14 years. Very sad all the work that everyone put in to this game had to get nuked to try and grab a group of instant gratification people that aren't going to like EQ anyway. Good luck EQ.

I'll almost always take the better player. Although for a tank 200 is pretty brutal.

51% avoidance over 100 hits = 49 blows hit
71% avoidance over 100 hits = 29 blows hit

So comparing two people getting hit by the same blows, the one with CA50 has taken only ~60% of the damage that the CA30 person has taken.

That's a more substantial difference than it might initially appear just looking at 51% vs 71%

How does this affect you in a negative way? I think it is great. There is a better chance now that new players will be able to level up and play the current expansion content. That means more people to group with and more popularity for the game.

Unless I guess you are one of the solo boxers who hates people, it makes no sense to throw hysterics over such move by SoE.

Keep in mind I'm not rage quitting. I've been here 14 years and probably will until the servers close. I'm not interested in getting AA's or anything free simply because I love the game play, I love all the content. I've refused free gear from my brother who is in a raiding guild and other's because I just like to do it on my own.

While I don't like this patch, I suspect they're doing it because they feel they have to, so I'm not railing against it, I'm just opting out.

As far as having alts and "needing" these changes, I have many alts, a lot of them are between 70-80 with less than 400 AA's. I was playing some of them tonight and kept dropping dead. Some of that lower level content can be quite challenging.