As a stickler for nostalgia and keeping the depth of EQ that I love, I would prefer if the rate of gaining AA was increased rather than auto-granting AAs. I love progression and character development, and I want to have as much be a choice as possible, not auto-granted. In spite of the 1000% bonus, gaining AAs at low levels still feels very slow without Test bonus or Lesson. A lvl 51 starting out getting some AA will gain approximately 15-20% of an AA per kill if I remember correctly, which makes it feel really slow. I recommend changing the formula for AAXP at lower levels so that a player in his 50's and 60's gains at least 50% of an AA per kill, killing light blues for example.
I have nearly 500AA at level 63 and I was getting 1/3 of an AA per kill, approximately, on dark blues while moloing. (Although it was admittedly in a hot zone.) Considering I can fight yellows without issue, I don't see the problem with the current rate.
You also have to take into consideration that when some folks MIA, they dont return because they know the ungodly amount of catching up to do that would be in order. Other games have a more friendly return system in place. EQ needs that too. If it did, maybe EQ would retain a lot more returning players than it does instead of returning players being isolated incidents like it is now.
This is exactly how I feel. I quit when the level cap was 65 and back then you got to 65 then AA'd. When I came back, my chars were terrible. Paper tigers. I now have 650 AA's on my Necro, easy to get for him, but only 128 on a same level Paladin and those only with the help of a good friend. The Paladin is in my opinion only about 10% of the Necro. Can't solo worth a ......... I have leveled very little since returning. I need 100% to AA and am still far, far behind after 4 months. Getting very frustrated and bored lately.
Honestly, tanks are the worst hit. They have the most responsibility with regards to AAs, gear, and augs of any class in order to just function in their role.
While gear/augs are critical for all tanks, this thread is about AA's. Two of the tank classes are excellent soloists.
This thread should be read through at length by those involved in the development of EQNext. They really need to control the power curve from expac to expac better and make the increases smaller and more manageable. Secrets of Faydwar was the point at which the numbers started getting way out of control.
Not so much. All of my knights have become soloing powerhouses with only a couple hundred AA's under their belt.
I will just lend my support for something being done here - good ideas floating around. I came back after a long absense and have been having a lot of fun leveling, but I am now sitting at level 65 with 300-400 aa. . .and am just overwhelmed by the work that will be needed to be raid ready. Leveling to 100 - fine. 1000-2000 aa - also fine. But the idea of getting 5k+ aa knowing that they will only get slower as I gain more is enough to write off raiding. My current mindset is to get to 70-75 and do epics as my personal endgame.
Sorry for the wait on this, as I had to check in-game. That AA is required level 90, so it's not of use to me at level 63.
2000 (well-spent) AA is more than enough for any non tank role, honestly. Most classes can get by with 1000. Some (I'm looking at you bards) can get by with 6-700 or so. Unless you plan to be in a top 5 guild, you can get raiding a lot faster than you think you can.
I've mentioned this in another thread and I will say it here. I was sympothetic towards new/returning players regarding this prior to a friend that came back to the game a year or so ago and rolled out a brand new bard. He hit level 50-60 in a matter of days with a bard and a merc tank. With the accelerated AA exp and exp bonuses these days its NOT that hard to level even by yourself. He was literally playing in end game expansion with high level toons in a month or so with a decent amount of aa.
Admittedly this is with the help of some high lvl characters but ... have seen lvl 95 characters with 2K AA running around with less than 100 hours played. At lower levels I can see granting free AA with a level earned but that should stop at some point. Say level 70, 75, or 80. Between bonus to AA xp up to 5000, Hot Zones, etc the grind to get to the top end of the game is all but non existent. Finding groups at lower levels is all but impossible because of the ease to get to level 90 plus for experienced players who have a little outside assistance.
I am raising my shammy at the moment as buffing and slowing class within my combo. I hit about 500 AAs very quick. The shammy is upon a silver membership and I am looking to buy only the usefull AAs below 1000 AAs.... Two points from me to the actual discussion: 1) I would love to be able to raise the AA cap for silver player up to 1500 or 2000 AAs, even for a small fee 2) The AA XP bonus is so big that you can earn AAs very fast with the help of simple missions (e.g. in Brell's) I do not like the idea of autogranting AAs though.
eh? 20% aa a kill at 51, and there's barely 50aas TO buy at 51 and certianly no more than a dozen needed...so, 60kills will get you everything you'll NEEd of them 300kills will max you out. what's so slow about that? I'm serious what's so bad about taht, at that level you have far far far fewer aas to worry about and yo uget better xp per kill. aa's really arent that bad to get especially those that are farthest behind, you get 10x xp at 0. no one forces yo uto solo everyone can have a merc (which is op'd til 60-65ish and will pl you if you have aweak toon) what exactly is the issue? 65-80? sure i can see 65-80 being a little rougher but at that point there are ton more places to go more pppl to play with etc. There're always people in DSH at the farm from mid to high 60s to 80, hook up with them anddo tasks. I think the problem for many returnees or new players is that they either ask advice then dont take it, or they enver ask in teh first place so theyre doing things the hard way. Asking and recieving help isnt allabout getting PL'd by some high level toon, it's in large part about seeking and getting the right information
Not all of us have the resources to level and XP at any real rate that matters. The rate in which anyone in this game levels and AAs depends on who you are. If you have friends currently playing at your hours, a friendly helpful guild, a clique, or if you box and whatnot. Returning players usually come back to the game and discover that most, if not all of their former friends that once played with them are permanently retired. Yeah, its easy to say make new friends etc, but when you come back to the game and are level 50 (example) then its quite hard to make friends with level 100s (which is the social part of the game mind you) and the mid-level and low-level are ghost towns outside of alts being power leveled - I mean, there are not many max level folks out there that would go out of their way to friend a level 50 stranger that they never met before that has been MIA to power level them. A lot of us would think that its some sort of scam these days if a level 50 toon sent them a tell out of no where being all friendly and wanting help with levels, as sad as that sounds. Ive seen many a case like this. A toon logs in out of the blue that is level 65 and hasnt played since PoP. All of their former friends are long gone and retired. They get frustrated and just log out forever because there is nobody at their level range to play with. So yes, AAing and XPing very much needs to be made easier. This game is about retaining MIAers and those returning players that come back to check the game out again. These are the players that the game needs to re-hook and right now, the game itself isnt doing a very good job at it. EQ needs to become a lot more returning player friendly. It needs to be way easier to get caught up with the rest of us that have been playing all along. So get that I Walked 10 Miles To School Backwards And In Snow out of here. It holds no water in todays EQ. The player base is shrinking. The population isnt big enough for that kind of epeen slinging anymore. The game needs to regain players, not lose them. You lose nothing by making this game easier to XP/AA. In fact, you gain something by this happening: A healthier and steadier population around you. I suggest that when you go and make a new character, that it gives you the option to start out at level 90 with 3000 or so AAs to spend automatically. And I would always keep that option 10 levels behind whatever max level is. So at level 105, that would mean that level 95 would be the new option when creating a character. This would help immensely and this is coming from someone that has played since 2002. At least then, that returning level 50 could scrap his old character and re-make it at level 90 with those 3000 or so AAs.
Kelefane is spot on. As a person who played from classic through until SoF before a multi-year retirement, I remember what it took to get those first 50 aas when Luclin came out. I remember that it took days/weeks to work through each hell level. I remember camping spawns for ludicrous periods of time and still walking away empty handed. Yes, I sunk a crap load of time into EQ. At one point I was raiding 20-40 hours per week depending on where we were with progression. Raids back then consistent of a frantic scramble and hours of prep time that may or may not have resulted at even an ATTEMPT on the mob you wanted to kill - you had to race for it. The difference between then and now is that back then there were vibrant communities at every step along the way - from sol a/b to guk ... there were PEOPLE there to make the journey worth it. So yeah, while I think everyone in their 20s-30s should have to experience LOIO and everyone in their 40s to low 50s should experience the legendary trains of Karnors ... those experiences are only had when there is a community in and around you to experience it with. Right now, 99% of the active playerbase is clustered in 1% of available content. Most of those who aren't in that 1% of content are power-leveling their own alts/associates through the other 99% of available content. Yeah, I walked up hill both ways ... snow ... no shoes ... maybe even a bit of herp-derp to boot. But I had people to walk up both sides of that hill with. Auto-granting aa's could work. Decreasing the xp required for levels 1-50 might work, as would increasing the both the potency and the ceiling on the aa xp would work. Lots of things would work. This whole "I had to do it so you have to do it also" mentality is asinine. Back when you had to do it, you had everyone around you "having to do it". It isn't a grind when you've got a community around you - it's an adventure. The COMMUNITY is always what made EQ unique. It's what made it successful. That community is now barely a shadow of it's former self - the game's old. Those of us that are left are, as I previously mentioned, nowhere to be found in the lower tiers of the game. The true veterans amongst us also don't spend as much time just cruising around Norrath. I was a teenager when the game went live. Now I've got a family, mortgage, professional career, and everything else to juggle. Most of us veterans don't have the same time freedom to just immerse like we used to. Allowing those beneath us to catch up without completely demoralizing them with empty zones is the key to the ongoing survival of this game. This game isn't fun to exclusively solo (or molo).
