Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

That addresses #1. What about #2? They are trying to avoid unforeseen player exploits when they do this. Their solution is exceedingly simple so as to avoid rule manipulation. Solutions like yours, while creative, get very complicated very quickly (mostly due to the shear number of available AA's) and it becomes very hard to predict whether or not such systems are exploitable.

Before you ask, no I do not see how to exploit your system. But I bet if it gets implemented someone will, either due to implementation (because it's harder to implement it makes it more prone to bugs) or something inherent in the system that we don't see.

I think a lot of it has to do with 2 things. First, the zones were much smaller than modern zones and required much simpler meshes for NPC pathfinding. Second, and this is big: there were no instances back then. You had a set number of zones with so many mobs and you couldn't go around creating as many zones as there are players that bog servers down even more because every single one of those instances has to do pathing calculations for at least dozens of mobs simultaneously.

Don't forget that they shut down Bard AE kiting back about the time you are talking about.

There have been instances since 2003 (at least - the first I can think of are LdoN) - it's still not clear why it has suddenly become a problem or a problem that has suddenly reached a critical level?
Having said that, the only zone lag I have ever seen (apart from when 150+ people were trying to fight in SL, but that's another matter) is with mages and their beams. That was, on those occasions, clearly an abuse and should have been dealt with on an individual level.

The other nice thing about this solution is that if you have already spent the time buying some of these AA's, they can remain bought by you. So now you don't also feel like the hard work you put in just got overwritten by free AA's.

And yes, I was going to have you explain how an exploit could happen when these AA's have always been there to buy with the conventional means. =P

So, here is my question.

If a level 51 character requests to be granted all appropriate AA's, do they then get only the AA's up to that level and have to grind the rest out? Or, do the remaining AA's (55, 59, 61 etc) get granted as this character levels up? Would it be more beneficial to wait to grant them until level 85 or grant them immediately and just focus on leveling.

I have been playing Everquest now for many years, and I must say that I enjoy playing the lower levels most. This being true, ever new character I make, I hate to have to re-grind all the same generic AA's (general and archetype to be specific).

From what I understand, they get granted in blocks as you level up through the expansions. So, you could click on the "Can Purchase" button in the AA window, sort by expansion, and buy only the least 4 expansion AA if you wanted to avoid buying the ones that will be granted free.

LDoN's were remarkably un-swarmable. Until recently, instances were mostly used for linear group adventures, so they weren't calculating pathing for all the mobs in the instances at once. Also, the instances were small and light on server load, not replicas of giant static zones like the ones used for swarming now.

Though I agree that it's mostly the mages beaming causing this because when mobs are stationary, the pathing formula can mostly be skipped, which I'm sure they are doing. Therefore, mobs standing still in melee range would cause far less strain than mobs continually recalculating their path due to a moving target at range.

Ah, thank you Nein Lyves. As is my usual, I have just recently made a new beastlord... and am reasonably excited about not having to do all those AA's again. Also, quite excited about not having to be level 85 to get them all granted over time also, as I do not like being PL'd.

Thanks also to you Piestro for your time in the forums and helping to shed some light on these upcoming changes. As well as for taking the time to consider the player base.

This also reared its ugly head in TSS which got wizzys beams altered, mages should have had theirs altered at the same time but they weren't as creative as wizzys back then, it has only been the last couple of expansions when their beams have become more powerful that they have started to mass kill. Large open zones have and always will be susceptible for lag and those zones were ripe for exploiting that lag for mass killing.

I was pleased to see that all forms of mass killing has been treated the same way, it wouldn't have been right to nerf 1 without doing all, thou I do think some may have gone a bit far.

Has the mass killing and zone lag got anything to do with the chat server and server crashes we have seen a lot more of lately? Or is something else causing those issues?

I came back to EQ and had that "massive wall" of AA staring at me...what did I do? I asked which ones I should start with, played the game, and worked on my AA set. The only ones granted were the ones granted by working my tail off(Iksar, haha).

New/returning players should have to do the same work others have done. Or give the ones who did the work something for the effort.

this is what I dont understand. They had already nerfed wizard beams so why the hell would they turn around and give mages the same thing?

Could we get something like this?
AA Points: XX
Total Spent: XXXX
Total Granted: XXXX
Add new rewards for the total spent aa achivements that we recieve, with the 4k+ rewards being very appealing.
Also, allow people with granted aa's to actually buy them afterwards to convert granted aa to total spent to get those rewards if they choose.

Thank you, so although each character adds a 20% bonus, the XP per kill is still basically divided amongst the characters in the group. So 2 characters get less actual xp per kill than 1 character, even though 2 characters get more than half the XP would have been with a single character.

I think the original poster was hoping that the bonus would be changed such that you got more xp, overall, per kill, per character, with 2 characters in the group, than you would with only 1 character.

I could be wrong (on both counts) obviously, and I do appreciate this is wildly off-topic.

Mostly no, although sometimes yes.

You also have to factor in speed of kills. The more people in a group, you will kill mobs a lot faster.

can someone anyone explain why zerkers are going to be allowed to decap anything lvl 99 and lower while rogue/rangers are still limited to humanoids yet spend somewhere around 4 times the AAs for the abilities.

I have 14 Active Gold Accounts. I do not think free AA's are good for our community. We as people never respect things that are free. We only really respect what we earn. We may value their use to us, but understand what we as veterans are staying around for is the part of the game you guys are forgetting at SOE. "EVER"Quest. It should be an adventure. It should take years. It should be difficult to be great at this game. This isn't Call of Duty!!! Point aim kill! This game takes us all back to when we were kids and wanted to fight a dragon! and find a treasure chest! So dont cheapen the thrill of those events by giving away the work it takes to get there. Im not threatening to shut off my accounts. Im down to 1 account as of today. If this goes live i will most likely move on totally. I have said my piece, i hope this helps. Like this if you agree guys.

I believe the AA giveaway doesn't compensate those players that have leveled their toons to max AA and lowers the game. Why not give away raid gear?

The nerfs to all classes ignores the fact that this was mainly geared players that were doing the pulls. I couldn't pull more than 7 without dying with my zerker. This is not different that the mage/necro pet nerf, you damage the playability of the group classes by directing a 'nerf' to higher leveled toons.

The 2 procs per minute on decap even with a higher cap level is too much of a nerf. Removing decap from riposte also weakens the zerker class. You give a benefit to a class to make it playable, then destroy the playability of the class. This may be the deciding blow to many of us.