Waaaaaaaay back when, you only gained spells every five levels. I don't know if they have re-initiated this on the progression servers, but I hope not. This 5-level step between spell gains made for what casters called "hell levels" before they gained a spell they needed to spur them into new levels of success. Then either Verant or SOE got smart and balanced out spell gains so that casters and hybrids got something new EVERY level. Fewer "hell levels". Now, the same mistake is being made with achievements. You have to kill a LEGION of mobs in the "Slayer" achievements chain to gain some minor reward. Then the reward is useless for the level you have to be to kill that legion of mobs. So you have created "hell achievements". I tried for a while to get through some of the achievement chains but quickly realized they were unbalanced. You would have to be... whatever the max level is now... to gain the rewards and then, at that level, the rewards would be useless to you. And when you realized you WASTED all that effort you begin to resent EverQuest... again. I invite others to share their ideas about smoothing out the achievements chains. I will share some of my own. For starters, I would NEVER set a slayer mob quota of more than 1000. The mob quotas of 5000 that I have seen are ridiculous! Spend the time to clean out, say, Blackburrow until I have kill 5000 gnolls? If there were a reward for this one mob type alone it would be different, but multiply this 5000 gnolls by the other 1000 types of mobs you have to kill and, yes, if you did the math you see it, you would have to kill 5,000,000 mobs to gain whatever pittance of a reward a "master of death" slayer achievement brings. Five million mobs? Are you kidding? How about some intermediate achievement benchmarks in the slayer chain of achievements? Kill 10 gnolls and you are a "Gnoll Outlaw" with an appropriate reward and/or ability. Kill 100 gnolls and you are a "Gnoll Villian" with an appropriate reward and/or ability -OR- an appropriate upgrade to the original reward or ability. Kill 250 gnolls and you are a "Gnoll's Most Wanted." 500 gnolls and you're a "Gnoll's Nightmare." 750 gnolls and you're a "Gnoll's Boogeyman." At 1000 you gain the title and ultimate reward/ability/title of "Gnollsbane". That's it. Run with it. Have fun. Some will agree, some will not, but give it some thought anyway. I for one will not waste any more time pursuing achievements while they remain unbalanced. But thanks for listening.
I never really looked at the slayer achievement as something to go out of my way to achieve. Its more of a byproduct of leaving the same zones you frequent and exploring the lands. I only have a couple categories left and that's without actually trying to accomplish anything in said achievement. There are gnolls in more places than BB. Just doing the hero's journey alone you will knock out a ton of those slayer achievements. Add in doing progression in an expansion and you will knock out all of the slayer stuff for the common mobs in those zones. If your main focus is to just try to work on your slayer than yes it will be a burden. Forget about it and just let the achievements come naturally. If you are down to a couple left I can see specifically trying to finish it off. As far as the rewards go some are very nice, some are obsolete by the time a person can realistically obtain them and others are just ok. I would rather see developer time spent in other areas than a massive overhaul of this system personally.
I would like to see intermediate rewards at lower steps in the achievements ladders. For instance, a Faydwer Affinity teleport for ANY race/class combination for completing the Faydwer Traveler achievement; an Odus Affinity teleport for ANY race/class combination for completing the Odus Traveler achievement; etc. Fast travel doesn't seriously imbalance combat statistics or abilities. How about a charm ability against any type of creature you have completed the Slayer achievement for. A relatively low level character could have a no-cost gnoll pet to help with the fighting for a while. Kill enough rats, gain the ability to intimidate a rat into servitude. I've seen all kind of pets running around the Plane of Knowledge. How about turning all mobs into potential pets just by learning all about them through combat? Wisps as fighting pets at lower levels. A panda pet from the Stonebrunt mountains for a few levels. Odd combinations like a cleric with a wraith pet become possible. Interesting?
