Consider Removing Autogrant from Vaniki

As things are, the 60 unlock will autogrant almost all AAs available at that level. The only exceptions will be 50-something GoD AAs like Persistent Casting and Weapon Affinity.

It'll get even worse after that though. By the time 65 unlocks, both PoP and GoD will be in autogrant range, meaning nearly all AAs for the 61-65 range will be autogranted as those levels unlock.

Same thing happens with every successive unlock, full autogranting of nearly everything available. There's usually a couple of outliers, AAs from later expansions with early level requirements (for example, Weapon Affinity is a GoD AA with a 55 req, Mnemonic Retention is an OoW one with a 50something req). However, as things stand now, we'll only have about 1-3 AAs to buy on every unlock, so AAing will be thoroughly pointless on this server.

The 55 unlock breathed a ton of life into the server's overall activity because of all the AAs it unlocked. EXP groups were plentiful at 55. From what I can tell, this won't be the case on any following unlock, which will hurt the server's health and longevity. AAing on Vaniki is fast because of the high exp rate, so I don't think removing autogrant will hurt people's ability to catch up very much.

As an alternative proposal, maybe autogrant could be changed to level-based rather than expansion-based. Meaning when you reach 70, all AAs up to 65 are unlocked, at 75 everything up to 70 is unlocked. Something like that with a 5 or 10 level spread. Which means people still have a reason to EXP on the server, but also eases the catch-up requirement a bit.

Before someone goes "You can just disable autogrant"...I'd like to, but nope. Taking an intentional huge nerf every level raise is a no-go, especially as a tank, just so that I have a reason to EXP.

In closing, it'd make a lot of sense to not keep autogrant the way it is for this particular server.

What exactly is the problem with this? If you don't want your AA's auto granted you are free to turn it off while those who looked forward to taking advantage of this on the server are free to do so.

This was a feature not a bug, who on earth wants to AA grind on fast release challenge server?

In general there's a big problem with it in that it removes the primary motivation to play the game outside of raid logging. "Turn off autogrant" isn't a real answer, EQ isn't a solo game.

That said, probably not an issue for Vaniki since most people are just treating it as an event server rather than their main server in the first place. Probably works out in favor of Vaniki's playstyle if anything.

What expansions are actually open on this server? Because autogrant doesn't kick in until DoDH and then it will only be Luclin AAs.

I still fail to see why this is a problem, there are people that are very happy that the auto grants are in place on this server because it will be a lot easier to catch up for the achievements. If you feel that you need to grind the AA for motivation to play you can disable auto grant and grind as many AA as you want. The devs are fully aware of the fact that auto grant will remove the need of grinding AA until the very end of the server. The player base is also aware of that as well as it was noticed as soon as the server was announced that this would happen for a lot of AA. At this point after the server has been launched it is too late to be changing that.

Right now it GoD is unlocked and when level 60 unlocks everything up to PoR will be unlocked which includes DoDh. Once that happens players will be able to get most of the AA's that they have up to level 60.

As the unlock schedule continues they will be able to get a large amount of AA without needing to grind for them but I don't see that as a problem on this server.

https://www.everquest.com/news/eq-vaniki-server-faq

On Aug 3 we get level 60 and OoW-PoR which grants up to PoP, so yes there will be no aa to grind at that time except to bank 120.

On Oct 27 we get level 65 and TSS-TBS. GoD is not autogrant so you need to earn them, then bank to 130

On Jan 19 we get level 70 and SoF. GoD is autogranted to any that didn't get them in last 12 weeks, and you can now farm to buy TSS aa

On Mar 16 we get level 75 and SoD-UF. TSS is autogranted blah blah

Looking down the road we will always have the option of grinding the newest 5 levels' aa or ignoring them and getting them for free the next cap raise. This is perfect imo. The ones that want to play a lot have new aa to grind, those with limited time never fall too far behind, little played alts that are kept at max level stay viable...

PoP doesn't autogrant until TSS.

Vaniki would be even more pointless and empty without autogrant.

Currently, everything through GoD is open, with a cap of 55. So you have SoL AAs to get, plus whatever PoP and GoD AAs are available in the 50s. There's plenty to do, which has kept the group game strong on Vaniki. Tons of people exping at any given time, even at 55. With the higher exp rate, it doesn't take long at all to gain AAs when catching up.

I was under the impression that autogrant for SoL kicks in at OOW. If it's DoDH, that changes the dynamic quite a bit in that we go from "zero AAs to get" at each unlock to at least having some AAs to get at each unlock.

Point of my post is that in future level unlocks, there will be very few AAs to get at any time, and thus very little reason to log in outside of raids. If letting people catch up quicker is a concern, keep autogrant, but change it to a level-based system (-5 levels) instead of an expansion-based system.

DoDh opens 2 hours after level 60 launches.PoR 3 hours after Level 60 launches....it changes nothing. Again its a slap in the face to the players putting in vastly more effort on what was supposed to be a hardcore server. Mischief/TB were supposed to be the "everyone" wins server..this was supposed to require effort not free powerups just for logging in.

I'm going by the Alla list https://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Progression_Servers

DoDH - Autogrants Luclin
POR - Autogrants PoP
SoF - Autogrants GOD
SoD - Autogrants OoW
Underfoot - Autogrants DoDH
HoT - Autogrants TSS

I thought that autogrant is 3 expansions behind current? There should be a number of AAs to earn to max out as expansions release, unless I'm missing something.

No thank you. This is supposed to be a challenge server not a grind out every single aa again server.

It's a minimum of four expansions back, sometimes more based on a formula they used. The precise list is here, look for where it says AA Autogrant:

EQ Progression Servers :: Wiki :: EverQuest :: ZAM (allakhazam.com)

Vaniki is special, it unlocks multi expansions per unlock, but it is level locked below the level those expansion were created for.

Vaniki's next unlock is 3rd August and will unlock 4 expansion created for level 70 players but will be level locked to level 60. This means there will be a lot of AAs auto granted, but there will still be others available to purchase if desired.

I think a lot of us on Vaniki like the idea of not having to grind 100s of AAs every time we get a level unlock, that way we can concentrate on other things like exploring the latest expansions at a lower level than intended.

100% agree.

Even tho PoR will auto grant PoP aas players won’t actually get them on Vaniki until they can level past 60. There are no sub 61 pop aas that I’m aware of

There's a lot of misinformation in this thread. It's only really the level 60 unlock where all the AAs are autogranted and to a lesser extent at 65, where the PoP AAs will be autogranted but the GoD ones won't. For the 70 through 90 unlocks you will have to grind the AAs from the newest 5 levels, only older stuff will be autogranted. Then from 95 through to live basically everything will be autogranted.

The reality is on this server anyone who is 'hardcore' is going to be glyphing constantly as soon as glyphs are available at 65. If you want to grind lots of AAs this is the server they are going to be most valuable because you will actually need glyphs to push content.

If you are worried about the level 60 stretch then a better solution would be to allow people to glyph at 60 on vaniki.