Enchanter - All spells in the Color Flux line now share the same timer

I appreciate your summary, thank you.

If the rewards were equal, I doubt many people would chose an AE group over a traditional group. It's a guess. No one really knows. Assuming this, the game play of a traditional group is objectively better.

Constraints on game play is fundamental to game design; otherwise, all games would be an uninteresting cake walk. It's not, generally, a dumb philosophy. It's at the core of any complex game (eg not chess, go, etc where the game itself is simple). Many people, myself included, will not choose to take a more difficult path when an easier one is available. If the easier path is unenjoyable or too brief, it lowers engagement. EQ is already well down this rabbit hole; if it weren't, you wouldn't have people paying other people to play the game (PL) for them.

The reaction here isn't about comparing EQ with a feature vs without; its about the emotions related to losing something. Those emotions are independent of the game being more enjoyable with or without the feature. This is similar to corpse runs or fast travel. If you're going to XP yourself, I believe a traditional group is a more enjoyable, albeit less efficient, than an AE group, but as you said, that's subjective without solid statistics to prove it.

I'd have rather seen zone lag fixed than the wielding of a nerf bat. I have a set of chars to run an AE PL group solo (Agnarr), and I've paid (in game currency) to participate in AE groups. I would never run an AE group myself if PL were available for purchase. It's moot anyways; this wasn't the motivating cause for the change -- Thanks Karen.

As far as I'm concerned, XPing in EQ is something I'm 'over.' IMHO, XPing is to be avoided absent any novel play (rare) or socialization. AE groups are aggravating for puller and mind numbing for everyone else, yet they require you to pay just enough attention to preclude most other activities. I'd rather skip XPing, but if I'm looking at the game play of XPing, a regular group is more enjoyable and is no longer encumbered with the feeling of you're-doing-this-wrong.

I don't prefer this change. This is silver lining on a dark cloud. I'll now have to spend more time XPing, which is on the whole bad, but at least that time spent will be less bad. I didn't intend to convey that I was excited or even preferred this nerf in my original post: "At least the fastest XP is no longer both mind numbingly boring and infuriatingly tedious."

Stuff like this nerf and the headshot nerf, after twenty freaking years, really craps all over my enthusiasm for this game.

For certain, makes grinding, especially faction, tedious and not fun in the least which usually leads to burnout, which leads to people not playing anymore.

I'm still of the camp that less AE groups is a good thing for the health of the group xp game.

However, would have rather seen a cap on the number of mobs per stun rather than shared timers.

It would be similar to cutting your arm off because you have a splinter in your finger, things definately were not thought through.

Again !