Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

My only fear is that they will not implement it. For once I may have a shot at catching up... my signature is a little off as I now have 500AA but the level is correct. This is my highest level toon. I have yet to experience end game in years, because I have been struggling to catch up. Having these AA's will be a huge benefit. My fear is that this vocal minority will shut it down... like they did the SC thing. That SC thing was great.... it would allow free Exp potion a month.. etc... but it got shot down by people who were upset that the FREE cash they were getting was being changed to a Free cash that they couldnt bank. It was aggravating and I just do not want this to be scrapped. I like playing my character and would love the AA auto grant. As a person who has played since Beta... I do not see this as pay to win.... because that term doesnt really exist... its too broad...

Actually, it's been posted that it absolutely will not be Feb 17th, as that is a holiday. But later that week is pretty likely.

wow, a delay for President's Day?

(really??)

President Grant would be rolling over in his grave! ^ best post in an otherwise quickly becoming tedious thread

Does this mean that after the auto-grant, that those who opt-in for the free AA will not have the loss of the AA exp bonus, although they will be over the current 4kAA limit for the bonus? I did not see anything stating this for certain, and would really like to know as it will impact my choices from here on out. Please

well unless they changed their minds somewhere in the middle then page 1 has your answer

I still think Piestro said it best... and he was right on the point......

It's more like: It'll fill in the holes of the AA's you COULD have gotten, but have not yet, up to the cut off expansion. IF you bought every last one of those, then you aren't receiving anything from the grant. If you got none of them, you are getting all of them. It is not a straight 4kaa, that's the typical number used as an example of whats going on by the people posting here. Actual numbers will vary depending on class.
I hope that helped to answer your question.

I think he means something else than that.
You would get the Auto grant AA, at a cost of zero. so they are not eating into the 4kAA that are currently being awarded bonus XP for. So anyone that did the grind and used 4kaa, some of which 90% chance more than likely will be within those autogrants, will be at a disadvantage, so to speak. They will have used up those AA that fall into the bonus 4k. the Auto-grant will overlap a lot of it.
This verse the person that just does the autogrant and then AA's with the 4k bonus still intact. In effect they could pass the former example easily due to the xp bonus still in play for them. Those that struggle to get into high end guilds that have restrictions to classes(I've experienced this a couple times in the past It's not fun when all your buddies are in a particular guild, but guild has strict rules for recruitment and the guy next to you trying to get in has 1kaa more, even if you are a good player. This does happen and we ALL know it.) will lose out due to the guild taking the latter example due to higher AA count, or more abilities bought.
This is only 1 possibility mind you and a simple way to explain the concern. It is by no means the only example or way things can be looked at. Just what I perceived to be his concern. As for an answer or anything else. idk.
Flaming aside, as well as angry posts, I would love to hear feedback.

Seriously, who cares if they get the achievement or not? How does that affect you?

I think they just want to know. Seriously, does it affect you in any way if you get the achievements? No, least not until they do something with the achievement points you collect with all the achievements. However some people still like to do achievements, and there is no harm in letting them. That's part of why they like the game. Else wise they would not have asked. For those that care about a different aspect of the game than you you jump on them? seriously?(at least that is what it looked like)

Its wild to see how much people freak put when a change occurs. I wonder if this change in AA's had not come soon after the Leader ship AA removal and the Class changes, I wonder if it would be getting as much negative feedback. Could this negative feedback be just a symptom of players upset over the last expansion and these other issues that may have nothing to do with the AA's.

Actually I would think it would count toward the achievement. If those people go on and max out their AAs they should get the max achievement.

Exactly spot on. These are basically the format for recruiting any individual/class to a group/raid guild.....or they should be. In recent years, sub-par players have flooded the ranks of guilds under the guise of experience that most guilds just have had to endure. This was a direct result of power-leveling. I truly believe the AA-Auto-grant will not have nearly the negative impact on the game that some here are fearing. Face it everyone....we have been dealing with max-level.....max-AA.....raid-geared players who have no clue how to play their class. I believe the PL'ers were allowed to breath our air for far too long. It became a service offered on all servers that no longer had any fear of reprisals from what would seem an uncaring bunch of GM's. I am glad the power-levelers are having the fear put back into them again and helping people have one less reason to turn to them.

As far as the guild/raid leaders who would choose to single out a potential app because they used a auto-grant of aa's at some point...you should be ashamed. Most raid guilds require the use of Magelo already. This can tell you if they have their aa's well placed and current for the content the guild is tackling. This is and has been your responsibility from the start when handing out a list of needs that the app needs to work on in order to be a viable addition to your force.

Woohoo I have a Monday off and its cold/raining/snowy. Time for a bit of EQ instead of dealing with the daily grind....oh wait...SERVERS LOCKED FOR A GINORMOUS PATCH????

They gave those who have the day off a favor....because some of us do.

I think you're saying exactly the opposite of what is actually going to happen. You're saying the AA grant isn't going to interact with the AA bonus and I'm pretty sure that is not the case. Just because you're charged 0 AA on the grant doesn't mean you don't have the the full cost added to the assigned count.

Free AA's? you may as well just offer any char and class creation available in the market place with any type of AA and gear combo for station cash. EQ is a pale shadow of its former glory and that is a very sad thing. It's true what they say, you can never go back.

Piestro is a fair and professional PR rep. He does right by his station and does everything he can to answer posts completely and timely. He works for sony, but I have never seen any bias from him.
I am glad he is here and for the service he provides us (myself on many occasions on many diff accounts) in consistent fashion.

Just imagine how many Raid Guilds have had to deal with sub par players because there is not enough to fill the ranks at times they may need and how many Raids have failed or been that much harder because of it.
Now imagine whats it going to be like to replace those Sub Par players with other players that may be coming back.. or with alts that can now be quickly brought up because players dont have to struggle so much to make a new character and work them up. As I said before some players have been held back from playing other classes because of the AA pressure. Now this may allow for players to try new classes or play old ones again. There is no telling what it will do... but I dont think like the very few who have been vocal here that it will be bad... in fact I think this is just what was needed. I would suggest to Dev's to scrap the Heroic Characters... this should fix what was needed.

Feb 15th, 2008

Earlier this week EverQuest Designer Nodyin made a post on SOE's forums about upcoming changes to the way AA experience is gained:

One of the most common topics of discussion on these boards has to do with AAs - gaining them, using them and how many you "need" to be viable in a group or raid setting. As time passes and expansions are released the total number of AAs that are available to each class grows, as does the number of AAs that are considered "core" by each class. Anyone who has played EverQuest for very long can realize how important a few hundred well-spent AA can be for any player of sufficient level. As great as the AA system is, however, it presents an ever growing barrier to new players or current players who might like to try a new class for a different experience or perspective. The hill, to put it simply, is simply too high to climb for many people.

To address this we're going to introduce the same type of experience scaling in the AA system that exists with levels. Just like level 1 is a lot easier to get than level 80 is we're going to change how AA experience works so that the first AAs you earn will come faster than the last AA you earn to reach the cap. This change should make it a lot easier for players climbing the levels to gain key AAs and advance to the point that they can interact with friends (new or old) that have more established characters.

What we've done is put together a very flexible, data-driven system that we can adjust as expansions are released or in response to changing circumstances. The way the system works is that we'll be able to create point ranges (with a minimum number of AAs earned and a maximum number) that will have a multiplier assigned to it. So you'll get the amount of experience you would have gotten prior to this change, but then that experience is increased by this multiplier.

So for AA #XYZ your multiplier might be 2.0. Before the change you would have gotten 500 experience. After the change it would be 500 x 2, or 1000 experience. Simple, right?

The higher you go in AA totals the lower the multiplier will be until eventually it will reach the 1.0 mark and AA experience will return to "normal". AA experience is already normalized by level to be equal to the same number of even-con kills no matter what your level is and this system will work with that. No matter where you are in terms of level you'll see the same bonus based on your AA count.

Based on the data we collected a few months ago and looking at where we're putting the 1.0 mark the vast majority of players will see a boost in the rate that they earn AAs with those at the low end of the AA count seeing the largest boost. As I mentioned above we're able to nimbly change the shape of the curve and as we release new expansions that push forward the total number of AAs that exist we will be changing the shape of the curve, including the point where AA experience returns to normal. So we'll be attempting to continue to support new players and returning veterans going forward with the AA system.


June 2012

- Changed the AA experience boost for low AA counts from 2500 to 4000 AA. The bonus now tapers linearly from 1000% to normal experience over this new range.
February 2014

AA Grant for Gold Members

Our current plan is to automatically grant AAs up to four expansions behind the current expansion, if the player opts to do so. Clicking a checkbox in the AA window will enable the granting option and any eligible AAs will be applied the next time the character zones or levels. The option can be disabled at any time if you no longer wish to receive granted AAs, though any AA received via auto-granting will be retained should you decide to later disable this functionality.

Characters that wish to take advantage of the experience bonus for low-AA count will want to do so before enabling the auto-grant option, as any AA received via auto-granting will count against the bonus. At higher levels, the auto-granted AA could completely exhaust the bonus experience.

Based upon player feedback to the initially proposed changes, Spell Casting Subtlety and Tradeskill Mastery AAs will NOT be automatically granted. These abilities can still be earned as normal, but because they are not beneficial under every circumstance we want to make sure you have the choice of whether you want to have them.
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Funny that what used to be described by the developers as a "hill" has changed to being described as a "mountain".

Funny that what used to be described by the developers as "earn", "earned" and "earning" is now a "grant".

Leveling in EverQuest and earning Alternate Advancement in EverQuest USED to be called "playing the game".

Now the entire game is being condensed into a shadow of its former self.

Just some examples of what "playing the game" now can become.

Download the game as a Free to Play person, find out about auto-grant and pay a one time $14.99 charge to upgrade to Gold for one month.
Level one newly created character played by a truly new to the game player simply using the Hero's Journey information given in the Tutorial.
Played casually, let's say less than two hours a play session, knowing no one in game and with no power-leveling, the character can easily, and I do mean easily, reach level 51 in a matter of under a twelve hours. Along the way the player has heard about the auto-grant. The player opts-in for the auto-grant and instantly receives all level 51 AA's with the exception of Tradeskill Mastery AA's and Spell Casting Subtlety .

Check here to see how many that is for each class. http://eqaasearch.org/index.htm

Now that person can completely ignore the various paths available to learn about and improve the character. Now that person can and is being encouraged to ignore vast numbers of zones and concentrate only on that which he needs to do is grind levels until they reach level 85. Along the way they have, no doubt, discovered power-leveling since the emphasis now being encouraged by the developers is the so-called end-game and he will probably indulge. This player will not know that he has been severely handicapped until he finds that merely reaching a certain level with a certain abstract number of Alternate Advancement points doesn't mean that the character is viable. Level one to Level 85 for even the most casual of players , for even the least knowledgeable players is assuredly able to be done in under a month in today's version of EverQuest.

Check here to see how many that is for each class. http://eqaasearch.org/index.htm

Now what? The character has anywhere from 4k+ to 6k+ AA's with little to no understanding of what each line of AA's does for the character , or for that matter, what they can and cannot do in group play. Suddenly the player discovers that , to actually be able to contribute to a group, the character needs better armor, better weapons, augments, knowledge of how disciplines work, has to have improved weapons skills, improved casting skills, needs a sense of what his character's capabilities are and needs a sense of what other character's capabilities are, needs to be able to find their way around the world (90% of which they were likely not even aware existed!). Much like being thrown into a pool with no instructions, no lessons and no life-preserver, they find themselves in a sink of swim situation. How many will chose to swim?

The question then becomes will this person continue to pay while they try to stumble along in the so-called endgame? Groups do not magically appear when one reaches level 85, or level 90, or even level 100 despite the various comments to the contrary! The person has had no real way to develop a commitment to the character, to the community or to the game. By now they have discovered that they can lapse to Silver and retain all those auto-granted AA's and also they will have also discovered that, as soon as the next expansion launches, they will be auto-granted even more Alternate Advancement for the one time cost of $14.99, so with no real incentive to continue a monthly subscription, they simply don't bother.

While leveling and earning Alternate Advancement can be frustrating at times, even a bit discouraging at times, the end result of actually playing the game is that there isn't really any mountain to get over, it is simply an uphill climb with a lot of satisfaction to be gained by the player as they reach each plateau. It used to be called playing EverQuest.

Another example.
A long time player creates one or more Free to Play accounts, plunks down $14.99 per account and is now quite able to power-level one or more characters to Level 85 with a nearly full compliment of Alternate Advancement points. The changes made to Mages, Rangers, Berserkers, Rogues, Clerics and Shadowknights notwithstanding, power-leveling will continue as a viable way to level characters, despite various comments to the contrary. This player now has buff-bots, or the necessary number of characters needed to request various quests, tasks, missions, access to more mercenaries for his single player-multiple character group and, again, no real commitment to the characters and no real incentive to continue a monthly subscription. When the next expansion is released, he again plunks down $14.99 for those extra accounts, receives another expansions worth of AA's, maybe power-level the characters some (since they will will have received expansions through VoA with their current Free to Play account) and again lets the Gold accounts lapse.

Naturally people can decide on their Silver accounts to pay for AA unlockers, to pay to be able to cast Rank II spells, but when you actually think about it, there really isn't any incentive to do so. Once each expansion launches, Free to Play accounts get more past expansions. They can continue to pay for a one month Gold account, receive their auto-grants for up to four expansions behind the current expansion and let the Gold Account lapse. Rinse, repeat if they want to.

In the meanwhile, what was once EverQuest, a game noted for its challenge, a game where time and effort was rewarded, where a player had a choice in how they wanted to develop their character, a game that could give a player a goal for which to strive, then another and another and another, a game that was capable of captivating an audience which spanned all ages, a game that actually encouraged people to jump in with both feet and explore the wonders of the vast world of Norrath, a game the likes of which has not been seen to this very day is fast devolving into something that is not only a pale shadow of its former self, it is becoming indistinguishable from all those other MMO's

No one ever thought EverQuest would last more than six months. Fifteen years later while the name remains, more and more and more the name loses its meaning. Sad.