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

When would you upgrade these abilities to keep them relevant? Nerfing us today and then making them relevant again in a year is a pretty bad deal. Opening them up at the same time as the nerf would be far less aggravating.

I have worked hard to earn my 7100 AAs...I did it on my own..no power leveling...lets be fair to those who have earned theirs

Direct and specific questions I have asked that have gone unanswered:

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?

Seems like its time to quit.

Everquest has always been the one game I would never run out of content with. I loved watching my character grow as I invested time and effort. Those basic AA's were the best AA's, getting your first spell crit, watching your character become a better tank, whatever the goal was.

It feels like all of this time over a decade is being ripped away from my character. The AA change is horrifically negative. Wasn't an amazing speed boost to 4k AA's enough? I could see this change appealing to new players, but lets be honest, there really aren't new Everquest players nowadays.

All of these characters I now have in the 90's or 100 that I've slowly been looking forward to working on... well, there goes that. They're all now raid-worthy and going to be sitting at 6k AA's. Throw a few more ranks of CS/CA, or some crit AA's, and run a few heroics, and I guess its just time to bench them.

Dear god, why? What are you possibly thinking?

Why are you nerfing rogues,rangers,zerkers ? We do not swarm with what we do we do not do it vs current content and that a lone limits the effectiveness of it. You're nerfing us because of mages/wizards and if you leave us alone and not them they will cry. So instead you just want everyone to whine.

It would be nice to see these changes strictly effect swarming, since I think everyone agrees is unbalanced. Unfortunately I see certain ability nerfs that will effect group performance as well:

A good example:
Lichsting (no longer riposte-enabled) - It's meant to be an "oh crap" ability rather than a swarm utility. Obviously if given the chance we'll use it to swarm, but my SK's riposte rate is so high that I will be losing a significant amount of heals while dealing with even one mob, let alone 3 high level mobs (its intended use -- grouping). Perhaps instead you could give it a counter, one that wouldn't fade in the confines of 3 or 4 mobs, but would nearly instantly fade in the course of a swarm of ripostes. I mean come on, Shadowknights are AE agro tanks who are getting their ability to handle multiple mobs gouged. At this point you could argue that paladins are better at handling multiple mobs with ward of tunare line of spells than anything in our arsenal.

OK, this is how I see it (for the classes I know).

It looks like you're not only fixing the lag spikes, but also reduce mass killing of mobs. In that case:

- For SKs, put a max number of hits in Epic click, prevent mortal coil from activating when it's already active or put a number of procs on it. The number should be high enough to allow tanking of 3 or 4 mobs.
- For rogues - prevent assassination from triggering when the ripo disc is on
- For berserkers - prevent decapitates when the ripo disc is on
- For rangers - no idea, but hat hs is way more powerful than decap/assassinate. Prevent HS from triggering when a mob is rooted or snared? Make it require being in melee range? Limit the number of procs (2 per minute is far too low).
- For monks - If you're gonna prevent people from swarming, make it so whirlwind does not work off ripostes either.

Rogues and berserkers already need a healer merc and can only take on 2 or 3 mobs at the time. Not only that, if the AA lines are not continued, they will not grant much experience, if any, so the only reason I can see to nerf them is to prevent them from swarming.

As someone mentioned, melee chars can't even tank a green/gray mob without heals, so, in order to make it reasonable, give all melees (maybe include hybrids, although I don't thing rangers need it and I'm not sure about beastlord) a chance to proc an insta kill against green or lower mobs. Make it work on ripostes too. Something like killing blow but without the 10% hp limit and without requiring aas, as casters do get something like that: spells are so powerful that you can 1-2 shot lb mobs.

Talking of which, give the same kill grey proc to enchanter, shaman and necro pets so they can mass kill greys off their ripostes. Magicians, druids and wizards don't need it, they already have PBAOEs.

Anyway, that's my suggestion on how to solve the issue you have without completely nerfing some classes.

The auto-grant AA nullifies the subscription paid and time for casual players. Since a refund has been precluded, then an in-game reward merits some time.

While some people have suggested "special titles" for previous AA earned, I would suggest something more tangible and equivalent to a Beta reward: special illusions, mercenary skins, or other clickable effects.

This could be implemented by installing an NPC in PoK that grants reward upon hailing.

When can I buy my Heroic toons? and please make more aa's for the bard class and fix chat channels also.

AA's needed to be streamlined better not given away. The biggest issue for returning/new players was the abundance of AA's out there.

You could increase the bonus and give an AA guide for classes. For example you gain a few AA's you have 3 guides to choose from. First guide is for Tanking/Survivability. Second guide is for Damage/Burst. Third guide is for a decent mix. After you choose the guide you would like the AA's most useful to that ability would light up. This would give these players a place to start instead of staring at a wall of abilities.

There are a limited number of "required" aa for classes (especially for non-tanks), when using the term "required" as really required, like you are incapable of contributing in a group setting as a level appropriate member of your class (and that doesn't mean doing max dps or whatever, it means functional).

Other than a couple of AA lines for tank classes, there are very few "required". I made this post last year:

https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/silver-paladin-aa-path-suggestion.204032/

It details what a 1000 aa paladin at 90 could be with some decent choices. Those 1000 aa take very little time to do (just killing dailies would get you there in like 3 weeks), and there is zero reason that tank (if GEARED appropriately could not function in level 90 content. Would it be difficult for SOME of the content? Definitely. I die doing some content at 100 with basically max gear aa augs etc. Can they progress? Definitely. If they were gold they could gain aa and be functional.

So what is really stopping groupers from progressing?

Lack of grouping opportunities. This prevents getting gear (people resort to farming plat to buy gear). This prevents getting augs. This makes it more difficult to gain AA.

If someone has a set group logs in and plays in appropriate content there is nothing stopping them from being functional and progressing without thousands of AA.

So that is the real problem, lack of grouping opportunities. So why isn't THAT being worked on more seriously. Heroic Adventures was a good start. Putting old gear on the vendors for the currency was a good start. The problem is that these missions do not scale in such a way to allow 3-4 random non-raider non-hardcore grouper people + a couple of mercs to complete them unless they have a mage pet to tank. No tank class is tanking them without already having most of the gear or equivalent that the vendor sells, not when its a new or returning player that doesn't have hundreds of days played to learn the ins and outs of their class especially.

HA are missing the one thing that made LDoNs so popular for groupers (and regardless of what people that disliked LDoN think, it was the immensely effective and popular):

The ability to just log on, grab some random people, and go at it. Even if you could find people, its not realistic in a lot of situations.

Well i really only play a sk. so whats happening to other classes i cant really comment on. im not even against the sks not being able to swarm large amounts of mobs as im max aa and aas aren't really that hard to get these days.
that being said i suggest putting a cap on lich sting riposte . idk say 5 or so mobs. the reason is when im working on kill tasks when visage is up i can use the visage epic combo to kill 4 mobs or so. this seems fair as killing a single mob takes several minutes. it kind helps things moving when im working on these tasks. being able to take on 4 mobs at once every half hour dosent seem to bad.
im a raid sk and when im moloing a mob and i get a add and i cant click my epic and live then i might as well just call it quits.

I think this is the best solution. Greatly increase the AA rate (again...again) so we feel a sense of accomplishment at the very least. If I level a new char and I gain AA exp really fast, thats awesome. If I level a new char and my AAs are maxed, we might have issues because I feel no sense of accomplishment whatsoever. Not everybody is a level 100 raider, nor wants to be.

There's quite a difference in upsetting a few classes over a couple abilities that can be considered slightly overpowered, and targeting the top 5 most popular classes and making them damn near useless and unfun to play.

Feel free to see my previous post about how Mage beaming is entirely OP and the rest does not require any tweaking to a character but rather "Quit making Hotzones target-able for these abilities"

20 pages is too many to go through to see if anyone has mentioned this yet but...
"Enchanter

• The Ward of Bedazzlement line was not changed due to the fact that mesmerization is not enhanced by multiple applications.
• The Rune of the Kedge line was not changed because the buff has an inherent limit in the rune component and because hate lowering effects are not considered game-balance-affecting even when applied en masse.
• The Tendrilmist Guard line was not changed due to the fact that snare is not enhanced by multiple applications and the rune portion of the spell creates a natural cap.
• Did not change the Color Shock AA line due to its relatively short duration and because the procced effect (stun) cannot, by nature, multiply its effect.
• Added a cap of 24 procs to the First Spire of Enchantment AA to keep the number of procced pets to a reasonable number. This new cap is high enough that we do not expect it to be reached except in extraordinary circumstances.
• Did not change the Rune of Banishment AA because it has an inherent damage absorption limit."

Chanters don't get that.
Spell: Tendrilmist Guard
MAGIC ITEM NO TRADE
Charges: 1
Skill: Abjuration
Mana Cost: 1124
Effect: Tendrilmist Guard
WT: 0.1 Size: SMALL
Class: WIZ
Race: ALL

I think changing decap and assisinate so they dont proc on riposte fixes the infinite kill scenario. The reduced proc rate on top of that makes the ability pretty useless. I'm a zerk and I agree a nerf was due, but nerfing it the way proposed makes it so infrequent that you are left without its primary purpose, which is too kill low con mobs and get them out of the way.

will loose my subs if this doesn't become a plan.

all the aa i work on now till you implement some junk idea is pointless for my toons..

just revisit your game for the love of .... so many quests / features left to rot over the years. you have an /ach system use it to reward those that visit the old expansion tasks with the aa that expansion gave!!
(just avoid 3 and 7 day timer npc required tasks!)

dont want to do the old expansion tasks required? then go grind your aa... simple!

Well all I know is that if the update does what it says its going to do I will be leaving and not returning. Thank you SOE for screwing a long beloved game up!

Spell Casting Subtlety would be one of those AA's people deem detrimental to their character. My enchanter still hasn't bought most ranks of it.

Next on the coders' list after all these changes can be the on/off toggle for passive AA's which we've needed for a long time.