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

If you cut the proc rate on headshot, it should be made more useful at higher levels. It takes about 4 to kill a farmer in Valley of Lunanyn. If you take something away, something needs to be added to make the ranger continue to be a viable class.

Personally, I think it would be a good move to pull over some of the AA "rules" you have from EQ2. Let people start earning them at a much lower level (EQ2 starts at level 10 if I remember correctly). Allow changes to where people allocate their AA (especially if you do put in the auto-grant feature and automatically place what AA people are getting). I'd understand limiting the frequency of changes, or forcing some cost or quest to allow it, but it would be a nice option. For people who have some AA already but not maxxed, provide experience (AA or regular) equivalent to the amount of experience they earned in their already-achieved AAs. Lessen the experience curve for AA so perhaps it's not as difficult for people at higher levels to earn AA (not that I hear anyone actually in game complaining on this - but I'm seeing a lot of posts here complaining that the experience bonus goes away after 4K earned). For people who have maxxed AA and regular experience already....maybe some other super-sparkly and useful reward (I'm kind of thinking a title would probably not appease those who are upset that other people are getting a benefit they don't have available because they've already met the max for AA).

Yes, autogranting AA means more people have more AA, but with the massive amounts of people getting PL'd through various channels (1-100 regular exp, thousands of AA in a very short period of time), you're seeing that anyway. Of course, the cynical side of me is wondering how many people are selling AA PLs and upset because the autogrant is about to hit their virtual moneymaker.

The number of experience levels or AA levels does NOT give an indication of the ability of the player behind the toon to understand game mechanics and actually play well, and it hasn't for years. It does let you know if a character (not a player) has perhaps a chance of doing okay in a level-appropriate upper end zone assuming that the player behind the character is not asleep at the wheel.

For what it's worth, I started playing EQ in 2001, played for years, took a seven year break, and am now playing again because I like the game better than any of the others I've played since. I played EQ2 for several years as well, and wish EQ1 had some of the benefits of EQ 2. Example: I prefer mentoring down on my own character with my own spells and skills - rather than shrouding - to experience zones (and gain experience) at a non-trivial level because they gray out faster than I can finish the quest lines. I would LOVE this option instead of being granted free AA. But I don't think the free AA is a game breaker or game destroyer by any means. I'll take 'em if you give 'em.

agreed with the last comment beams are outtah control

After browsing through I have come up with a few questions/concerns that would be great if they got clarified.

Question: For the people that put in the hard work, time, and effort of getting these AAs that will not be granted, will there be any compensation? all the ones purchased refunded to allow different purchases? Maybe in some other form even? As a player I've spent many hours achieving AA that will now be given out for free, so it does kind of rub me the wrong way to see someone achieve the same goal that I've worked hard for just by becoming a gold member ( which I am, and have been during the AAing process).

Concern: With the nerf on Assasinate, Decap, Headshot limiting viability of these options I think many of us that play one of these three classes are concerned. I understand as a player using these abilities for fast XP has left other classes discouraged. However, by changing these abilities to the terms in which were stated in the patch note seems to deem them obsolete. The AA description of some of these abilities state that they are intended to slay the mob when they proc, however this is not the case. These abilities have been neglected for some time. It seems to me as if rather than fix them the right way ( say making it a 1% chance to proc on mobs of higher level, or making it deal enough damage to outright kill the mob but lower the chance) that they are just being put on the "back burner" for now. Unfortunately in the past this has not worked out in many cases, quests broken for years at a time or items not functioning properly have left me with the feeling that these targeted abilities may never come to be useful again. I'm fine with this though, but if this will be the case, why not just remove them rather than nerf them to the point of unusable.

More attention to Everquest is good right? Maybe I can't say this for sure, I play Everquest for a unique experience not offered in every other MMO game. I don't know if I am the only one but I enjoyed Everquest more when people didn't have max stats, you had to piece the "best" suit of gear together, and it wasn't in tiers for us. Everquest is Everquest, players don't want a different game. The fear I have is by being Guinea pigs for the next generation of Everquest, is that we will lose what makes the original Everquest fun to many of us.

Positives in my perspective: Mage beams did need to be nerfed. I was actually in the process of leveling a mage up to beam pull just because it was that ridiculous. In addition to this poor wizards were being out kited by mages! Shadowknights were able to consistently swarm, which seems to not be very fair. Although a longer cooldown on epic or limited number of strikes might be a more fair alternative.

As a player I enjoy swarm kiting, I don't think its a bad thing. I know the data metrics of server loads show big spikes during swarm kites which should be obvious. The only thing that concerns me is can that data correlate to classes other than Shadowknight/Mages ? I mean of course to a certain extent but these other classes are not known to consistently be pulling hundreds of mobs at a time. Swarm pulling was an art in Everquest, I was sad when they did away with bard swarm kiting, and I will be when this patch hits. I feel moving forward we are left with a lower amount of diverse options for achieving levels/aas. One of the thing that drives me as an EQ player is diversity within this game compared to others.

Sadly I think we have been dealt a blow as a community and the patch will further restrain our unique play styles. However I am hopeful that I am wrong in this perspective.

I am also concerned that in your efforts to modify shining bastion so that it can't be used in swarming, that it will also come with the collateral damage of also impacting its normal usage during intended, regular (ie: not swarming) game play. I could see hitting either the hit cap or the proc cap before the buff would have normally expired on just tanking a few mobs at once. Not a swarm. But a few. The normal, day-to-day situations where people sometimes have to tank more than 1 mob. On raids this is more problematic because in addition to already having to watch a buff that has short duration, we now have to do that and also be ready to recast it if it dropped prematurely just cause it hit its limit of how many times it can proc or how many hits it can mitigate.

If this was just impacting swarming, I wouldn't care. But, again, I can imagine scenarios where this would impact normal gameplay. If you still feel that you absolutely must nerf it, please increase the number of times the heal will fire and the number of hits it can take so that there is no way it will ever drop under normal gameplay. There is a huge difference between taking on a handful of mobs in normal play compared to taking on the hundred+ in swarming.

there is one change to the cleric class i would like to see the ability to stun in pvp

let me get this straight being a gold member you get all the aa's up to HOT?
then it stops till next expansion ? and what if you already have just about all of them now ?
this sure blows the daily's outa the water since they are kind of horrible reg experience....
this doesn't sound good at all
sounds like Sony want us to leave this game and go to eq next which I see being just as good as the other games that failed ....

97 Rogue 3100aa here. The problem isn't with the abilities, the problem is players who abuse them. Why nerf all of us when you can just have CS deal with the players causing issues?

What I suggest - remove the level cap and body type restrictions to make it a fixed chance to do large damage from any backstab like Arcane Fusion and whatever you did with Monk kicks.

What's great about abilities like that are they even the playing field between raid and group geared folks. Tons of people over the years have pointed out the huge disparity in potential between raid geared melee and group geared melee vs raid casters and group casters. Wiz mercs outdamage most of us anyway, so how about throwing us a bone so we are desirable and bring good DPS to a group.

As John Houseman might have once intoned: "I got my AA's the old fashioned way. I earned them."

Without reading every post on the many pages of this thread, I'm sure that I'm repeating something that has probably been said hundreds of times. I understand the nerfs and changes to the game to prevent large numbers of creatures to be killed at once. This is nothing new to the game. Adding and removing effectiveness between classes in order to balance them against each other and against the environment itself is necessary for the long-term survival of the game. You don't need to make graphs showing us processor workload. These are abilities that have been exploited to do things that they were never intended to do. I appreciate the fixes.
As for the the auto-granting of AA abilities, this is a bad idea. The point of the game is to constantly work to improve yourself. Remember what the game was like before any of the expansions had come out? You saw a 50 warrior and you were in awe of his accomplishments. Seeing what someone else has been able to obtain was the driving force to better yourself, in order to earn both the power and abilities of the level, and the respect of the players who know what you went through to get to where you were. Now move ahead 15 years. Most of that is gone. The old-world is a joke. Everything under 85 is a joke. I can accomplish in a 3 day weekend what used to take a year. Effectively nerfing AAs is the final nail in the coffin. If new players start on a level footing with seasoned players, then what's the point???
Most of us have played for a very long time. Other MMOs have come our way, but we have either stayed loyal to EQ or come back to EQ because it had what other games did not. It had challenge. It had risk. It had true accomplishment. If this change takes effect, you will have removed the only thing that made this game worth playing.

Decap, Assasinate, Headshot...I haven't seen where these disrupt zones. I haven’t heard people complaining that these disrupt zones. I have seen them help folks farm items or PL. Does that make it bad because some classes can do some things better than other classes? No. That’s a good thing. Classes have become too homogenized over the years as it is (IMNSHO).Want to make these abilities viable on higher-level mobs?

Introduce a new AA: Ubah l33t Headshot (or, whatever). Must have X levels in Headshot as pre-req (or, just a level prereq). Let the new AA have a proc rate of about twice per minute.

Auto-grant AAs?
Let folks make a list of Passive AAs they don't want for whatever reason. Stuff that mitigates or generates agro? Best not auto-grant those, as people may not play in the cookie-cutter faction you think they should. Crafting AAs? Ditto.

Auto-run, increased regen, etc.? Yeah—go for it. Or, make them inherent abilities, and refund people who have bought them already. For the folks with 8000AAs, this will give them a significant amount of AAs to re-invest in the end-game AAs that they need, and will take out the sting of giving them to everyone.

--OR-- How about offering a “refund” button on passives (activated through a quest, mayhaps), so if someone really doesn’t want innate HP regen or whatever, they can get those points back and use them elsewhere.

--OR-- Simply a new ability to turn off individual passives (“pause this passive please” button…maybe shorten the name…).

Active AAs? Grant ‘m. People can choose not to use ‘m.

What about people who already earned them? Give them a title. A shiny bauble. A puppy. Change happens. They already have pride in the fact that in their day, they had to walk to school five miles in the snow, uphill—both ways.

Final Thoughts: I’m a casual player. I enjoy solo/molo, and I enjoy grouping. During the week I’ll knock off quests (got my Torch, Shovel, Broom and Stein on my level 33 mage already…), camp fun stuff (got the Pegasus Feather Cloak on my monk), do dailies, etc. Weekends, I’ll try to get into a group or two if I have time.

As a casual player, one thing I like is being rewarded for effort. Leveling? Too easy already (again, IMO). AAs? They come fast. I can log in, get 5-10 AAs in a short amount of time and feel like I’ve accomplished something. I don’t yet have 1000AAs on any toon, as I just came back a few months ago, and haven’t put in the time. I, personally, would much prefer a scenario where AAs come more quickly, rather than just being given for free. Earn 100, get 100 free! AA EXP always on. Quadruple the exp rate for them. Tons of ideas on what could be done for this already posted.

this is the 1st I've head of this
I would have said NO
NO NO NO !!!!!!
I want to earn them
as I've been doing for over 12 years
now the game will have PLed clueless people with aa's
THIS IS WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS !!!!!!!!
I DON'T EVEN WANT TO LOG IN GAME NOW
wait ...wait
will my lvl 100 with maxed aa's lose them ?
and have to wait till next expansion to get them back or can you earn them the regular way ?
I feel like I'm being punished for something I never did.. I never pled, swarmed, beaming or pulled more mobs that I couldn't handle and I play a 100 rogue .
This is the end..... by the doors keeps playing in my head..
NOW I know why mags have been so cocky lately no offence but I wish them all a week in hell for this ...

No Target Limit on Vinelash i would rather them remove headshot then do this.

I am currently the top SK on my server and have played the game since launch with various accounts and alternate characters and represent thousands of dollars of revenue, both in the past and potentially in the future.

Although with my main character I am proficient with "swarming" techniques, I loathe it as a method of regular gameplay, and even though it has been highly glamorized, it is highly overrated for xp gain in relation to a lot of other methods and other classes. It is also extremely boring and has bred a wad of wannabe shadowknights that know nothing about really playing the class. I seriously doubt there are many true SK players that would bemoan the loss of this ability.

However, the riposte leech change proposed will be significant and drastic reduction in tanking ability in raiding and normal grouping situations.

The very simple solution of reworking or replacing the Mortal Coil AA with something like Killing Spree or similar would solve the problem related to SK swarming completely and still not handicap them entirely in raiding or normal grouping scenarios.

Regarding the rest of the proposed changes, with the exception of beaming (see below), they are all totally unwarranted and are only going to cost you subscriptions. I am not a "sky is falling" kind of person but believe me when I say you are alienating your player base in such a drastic way, that I truly fear the demise of the game.

Even though I believe the server performance "reason" stated is laughable, the only change I see a need for is related to beaming. All the other abilities and techniques discussed and potentially nerfed have major limitations. Being able to kill an unlimited number of current content creatures represents a very different scenario that some classes that can kill a number of light blues with various limitations. Nevertheless, I would still suggest keeping beaming viable and fun by giving it a reasonable target limit (greater than the proposed 12).

First i would like to say that these changes are not intelligent at all it is going to kill the game for alot of players and keep the returning players that are slowly coming back from coming back at all not everyone has the time or even wants to lvl to 100 with 10000 AAs any more that being said its also all about the money game this is a significant way for experienced players making pp and the krono was intended for that purpose not enough people are buying them so u are ruining the game for alot of players its not like you dont have to lvl the characters and get the AAs to do those "massive" pulls and to correct what everyone is saying the only people that are complaining are the people who arent putting in the work to make 1 of these characters to do these abilities i for personally will no longer be playing once this takes effect i will go back to WoW with my 5 boxes and say have a nice day i came back from WoW after a few years and found that playing this game was fun again being able to "massive" pull was risky and exciting now your gonna kill it again and giving gold members free AAs up to underfoot is wrong aswell its like your screwing everyone who has had to do it all on their own the people that put in all the time and effort to get all those AAs in both cases this isnt right for players who actually put in the effort and for everyone saying oh only people who will complain are those doing it well im not doing and im complaining

I am a old player who recently returned a few months back (left around GoD), finally hit 100. And was very excited to start going through all the AA.

This change is really outrageous.. I already feel it killing my desire to even keep an account active. What keeps me coming back to EQ out of all the other games is the amount of stuff I can actually do on my character to help him progress. EQ has always been about the journey and not just end game goal. WHY are we trying to just speed up the process?

As a game dev myself, I hope you seriously take forum comments into consideration when you actually ask for them. I know in the industry we generally get our goals from up above and then do some type of fanservice on the forums. But seriously take the feedback from this thread as far as AA is concerned.

While I do see the point in making it easier for new or returning players to be able to experience newer content quicker, I think the auto granting for aa's is the wrong way to go. As a returning player myself I am behind in AA's and levels, but I don't want the aa's I am missing handed to me. Part of the fun of the game is deciding which AA's I want and in what order.
I know very little about computers and nothing about programming and how hard any of it is but I think a good compromise, if it is conceivable to so do, is grant them like achievement rewards on getting the level achievement, giving a little boost instead of a HUGE boost, and for those who don't want any boost they just zone and all but what they can bank goes away. Still makes it easier but also means they still have to work for some as well.

A lot of the "new" player base however Will want a huge boost. Most of those new players don't even bother reading the AA list to see what any of them do, they just ask their friends or guild mates or whoever Power levels them which one's they should get making no choices for them selves anyway. But pleasing these people most likely won't make them pay for gold membership because they are all looking for a free game anyway. Best to please the high levels who HAVE to pay to play their characters with any hopes of moving forward because they have been playing loyally for so long.

I am grateful however for your decision to nerf the swarmers abilities, as a casual gamer who doesn't want a Power level and am trying to experience Content as I am ready for it, swarmers make it almost impossible for my husband and I to find a place to kill with out having to fight level 100 players for mobs in a level 85ish zone. If they aren't killing as fast then there is a chance we might be able to kill for the entire duration of our Lesson of the Devoted. So for this I thank you, because MOST of the population that have these abilities that I have encountered, they don't care what affect they have on others, when asked to share mobs, they train you. when asked why they are so inconsiderate of other players the nicest response I have received is " because I can".

The mantra for years was always: A new player should be able to get to the end game in a consistent amount of time.

But it was NOT just handed to them. XP was scaled and items were added (ie defiant). Now AAs are out of control and mandatory to be an effective end game player. Please just continue with the old school approach:

1. Scale XP Its still earned, just faster.
2. Itemization Level restrictions on items, buffs, and even group xp are just silly at this point. Remove them. If raid gear from 4 expansions back is required for a player to be a useful end game player or even just help get them there, then make it droppable. Its not like guilds raid Underfoot anymore.

Ok i cant understand this nerf for the most part i can understand why your nerfing the mage beam pulling cuz they were killing 100's of mobs at a time in like 2 minutes or so but i a ranger at lvl 93 and if i pull more than like 10 target that are like lvl 85 and without a healer and my roots dont land well i can find myself in seriously trouble with traveling and picking up more mobs espeically non- humaniod could i use flustshot and blustershot yes but than i have to hope my vineslash can keep my current target in place or i can un into for mobs and i could eventually die with just getting overwhelmed my too many targets, and for zerkers its like there lifeline to moloing, for one they get it at 91 it takes a long time to get there if they got there on their own, and they can only molo like 3-4 targets on their own, if you nerf them to where they can only proc 2 times a minute they might be able to solo 1 if they so happen to get to decap 2 time a minute cuz with you saying that they might not even decap at all in a fight, but he mages i do understand but your still giving them the over hand when they are the ones making the zones truly laggy, killing that many mobs at once an clearing a whole zone like that is wrong, but there the only classes that can do that a ranger most of the time when hsing runs into targets he can't hs cuz of the non humanoid fact, same as rogues, and with rogues and zerkers they have to up right next to them taking the hits to get there AA skill to proc, so im wondering out of one class (mage) is all the other classes getting nerfed nerf them to where they cant do that and keep the other the same there great AA's i understand but we couldnt abuse them like the mages abused there beam spells.

I will admit that I have PL'ed a good majority of my characters to 80+ and have had people swarm thousands of aa's for me and let me say that it has ruined the game for me. I don't know how to play those other characters well at all. I haven't put in the time needed to develop my characrters. I ususally go and do whatever is popular at the time. What you are proposing will make things worse for people like me who need to take a step back and take the time to enjoy the beauty that is EQ. Granting AA's will kill my drive to build up a character slowly as you have intended from the beginning. Right now I am currently on regular xp waiting for my characters to get their AA stimulas packages. lol. I have no drive to go out and get aa's at all.