Changes with the February Update: Alternate Ability Grants for Gold Members and Ability Changes

I like the changes generally and I especially like the commuincation practiced here by the devs.

Mass-killing was an issue (maybe some of the classes which were hit now, deserved it to a lesser degree) and I can understand the worries of the SKs regarding their tanking role.

AA granting: I find it rather ridiculous when people tell me how they "worked so hard the last year to finally get XXX AA". No offense, but the first 100 AA during PoP - THEY took real time. Back then you were happy when you made more than 10 AA on a saturday starting at 11 AM and finishing at 2 the next morning - so don't come here whining how hard you had it the last year, it makes you look ridiculous.
Why come here moaning "all your efforts are lost", because guess what? They aren't! You had enjoyment with friends/other players, you played a game for a year and how is that in any way diminished now by something other people get?

1 thing I would take up though: the suggestion to make this autogranting optional. For people who really WANT to go through all the learning and grinding, they should be free to do so. It shouldn't be too hard to implement a switch which is OFF on standard and when you reach level 51 you get a message "you can now get free AA, do you want this to happen? If so, please turn the switch ON". I think that way everyone could play the way he/she likes.

Refunding Headshot? You know that it's a PoP old ability with 252AA for total ranks?!!
Wow, guys!

The solution to balance things imo was to limit these abilities and give them to all classes.
A possible solution: Trigger based, heavy damage, and one trigger max per tick.
Another solution: Automatic heavy damage but can't use the ability while in combat.
There would be no "server endangering trains" if you do stuff like that.

At least give us fun abilities to compensate this ugly rebuking nerf!
When you nerfed rangers' Harmonious Arrow (that was overpowered), you made it really too crappy but you also gave rangers the Blusterbolt spell to compensate this nerf, and that really roxed.
Give players some candy along with that stick!

Also on all servers, each day, all the time, players are generating trains of mobs.
Make players totally invisible to grey cons would help more than nerfing swarm pulls abilities.
Giving to classes more possibilities to drop aggro, to negate training or to avoid training..l.

Best idea yet.... much better than auto grant

Ah this kid who just graduated high school got handed a house almost identical to yours just across the street. They gave it to him because he felt it was too difficult to work for 10 years and save his money and buy one of his own.
Shouldn't upset you, you've been using your house since you got it.
What a horse**** pseudo philosophy your trying to stand on here.

One of the reasons we announced this several weeks before it would be made live was specifically to get your feedback in time to potentially act on it. We're actively reading and reporting on this topic.

i could live with that too, yeah.

I am not a fan of these changes in any way shape or form.

I ask that before you start taking things away from the EQ population that we have grown used to, please fix the Universal Chat service. That is something that is definitely broken.

15 year veteran here, can you guys neuter the ******* game anymore? How about when gold members zone into raid zone, a chest spawns. Then you won't have to inconvenience gold members/returning members with pesky raid events. I'm sure that would make your jobs even easier right?

I play the armpit class of EQ "aka warrior" I have max aa raid gear etc and i don't complain about how bad the warrior community has been treated since day one. In my spare time i like to play alts and level up the "hard way" as intended. I don't want AA handed to me EVER! That is like going to take a test and having all the answers on a piece of paper next to you.

Also, these returning members you guys think are going to come around won't be showing up, first reason, they left the game because they got sick of the direction the game was going. Secondly, why would someone who use to play EQ 15,10 or, even 5 years ago want to return to a game where you literally showered with rewards for accomplishing nothing but paying 15 dollars a month?

Just my 2 cents

What started me replying to you.

Well you wont have to grind 6k AA's cause they are going to give them to you lol

Ok guys, what are you doing. you take away the only reason a sk has to play. they SUCK at tanking my necro pet mage pet is SUPERIOR to sk tanking in every way. You want to come up with excuses to get rid of mass killing fine but by now (14 years Later) you should have made enough money from us to keep the servers running smooth if even every zone in the game was being mass swarmed. Do you get this same issue from people who do this in instanced zones only? I really am unsure what your ULTIMATE plan is, though I know there is one. But server stability isn't it. There are numerous things to fix in game to balance out players. a pet shouldn't be better than a tank but they are. beam kiting and other forms of kiting are unfair only to those who don't invest the time on toons to make the plat required to receive such service. I made my own pln toon from scratch so I don't get the bickering which is what it is. limiting mage spells to 12 is fine I see no reason outside of a pl that they would ever need to hit more than that. zerker decap seems to me like a reasonable limitation as well as they cant use decap in any lvl appropriate group anyways. ill even agree to the sk line IF you would fix their dmg def mitigation. As it is I see A LOT of sks getting put into the never played with again box because they serve little to no purpose outside of pln atm, same with tanks,. Seems your purpose is to eliminate pln in all forms. THATS FINE BUT MERGE SERVERS SO WE HAVE SOMEONE BESIDES THE MERC TO GROUP WITH TILL LVL 80+, otherwise leave pln alone. we take care of ourselves when you fail to.

This whole idea is just rubbish. It reminds me of playing on an emulated server. You grant yourself a whole bunch of free levels and AA, and then what? You quit playing it after a few hours because you're BORED.

Hello!?

Wow this is gamechanging to us who don't have a level 100 with 8k AA. I haven't been an "end-game" player since Planes of Power. I haven't even been max level since that era. I enjoy grinding AAs with my group and progressing that way. I'd rather grind AAs and group content than progress via a raiding guild. Times have changed, I'd rather keep to myself now adays and multibox/merc than dedicate time to raiding. I enjoy grinding AAs.

On one hand, I am glad to see useless AAs like "Innate Agility" gone soon (hopefully? plz make it so). Actually I just added it up - The general tab has well over 30 different AAs that I have no intention to ever put points into and around 18 different AAs that I actually need. That does not seem right and it needs cleaning.

I am really mixed on this. I was about to play my new 3box+3 mercs group, and was planning on staying around 75 to grind out AAs and max them out. Now what are we supposed to do? Just level straight to 90ish? That feels so odd to me. AAs are alternative leveling paths that differentiate EQ from other games. Now level is king?

OMG! Why is so hard to understand? It isn't the 12000aas that they care about. It's the fact that they put in that much work to be much much more powerful than the average player. That is the whole point. By boosting up the power of the average player (a welcome change imho) their incredible edge is being reduced. True. That may be the whole point of the change. But don't be so stupid as to "not understand" that they worked hard for that edge.

Have the devs already started developing these changes? If so then the population should have been involved sooner in the discussion. If development hasn't started then I think you'll have ample chance to adjust your approach based on feedback - in particular with regards to AAs and SKs

your argument is predicated on the idea that your life is ruined by other people having things, or that how and when other people got things has any kind of real impact on your having of things, aside from your having a temper tantrum over your sense of pride.

there is absolutely no real, logistical context in which auto-granting AAs is not an amazingly good thing for the game, the only conceivable downside is some people being butt-hurt because they've convinced themselves other people having AAs makes them no longer special.
(well, besides those that want to grind AAs, in which case the whole opt-out thing sounds like a fine idea to me)

This is just plain asinine! Headshot has already been limited to:
'Humanoid" mobs only
Single Targets
Damage capped
Mob level effectiveness capped (Maximum level of a mob that it may be used against)

I don't and haven't ever played a rogue, but I'm pretty sure their assassinate abilities are already similarly limited.

Given your stated reasons for "nerfing beam kiting" I absolutely understand fixing that so that the server CPUs aren't overtaxed by people "swarming". However, due to the previous nerfs on the Ranger's Headshot ability you have prevented just such a "swarming' issue being caused by Rangers using their Headshot ability to level/get AA.

My questions for the Devs and Powers That Be:

Why then would you further negatively impact game play by rendering this ability for Rangers pretty much useless?

Why are you lumping 3 other classes who don't 'beam kite' or swarm in with those who can and do, causing the server CPU overloads you say are the reason for the change?

Why not instead limit the number of mobs that can agro a specific player to say 3 or 4 at a time in any of the specific zones in which this 'beam kiting" is being done as you have in other zones in the past?

Why not limit the number of targets against which the spells used for 'beam kiting' are effective against at a time as you did the Ranger Headshot ability years ago?

On a somewhat related note, but not specific to the quoted post:

Are you now going to refund me all the of the AA I have earned and spent over the course of the past 14 years or so that you are now going to be giving out for free so that I might spend them how I want to spend them? Or will it instead be a , "So sorry you wasted all those hours earning those points, but thanks for your money and loyal patronage of our product."?

I have been playing since 1999, I have several characters maxed, and work on aa's diligently. It has always been part of leveling up a character, get it to 51 and work on the necessary aa's for that level and so on for each level after that until I hit about 90 and then I will level up max and then work on aa's. It really does not seem fair to give out a bunch of aa's just because someone has a gold account. Between my hubby and me, we have 5. Yes I do have a ranger, yes I do headshot, but I don't really use it to PL and it pisses me off when people send me tells saying "hey I have such and such a camp come PL me." My ranger is max aa's, only because I worked my butt off to get them. If you feel the need to dole out a bunch of aa's make it RS and others like that, not the Class specific or Archetype ones. People should have to work for things not just have it handed to them, like the rest of us had to. They get 7K aa's what do I get for my 15 years?

I have experienced the lag due to kiteing, Evantil is a great example. SK goes into zone pulls everything close to zone in, you are up in the top of the tree and can't move. Sucks!!!!

I remember back in the days when getting a level was HUGE, completing an aa arc was HUGE even had to farm to get plat to buy my spells. It is easy now. Please don't make it that much easier. Nothing really left to work for.

Silly enough that we can now just run up to a vendor and buy our gear.

There has to be a better way.

There is no enjoyment with others in this game anymore. It's all about moloing. Try and find a group half the time it's futile.

There are a lot of things to fix in game other than granting free AA's...... as the chat server collapses again.......