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

So, you're going to screw us now...but leave the $200 on the nightstand in 18 months. That does not sound like a good deal for the progression servers (reads: all gold members). I would rethink the release of those changes until something equitable can be done for all servers.

Quid pro quo.

moogs - you hit the nail on the head. I've been playing since Kunark and never felt like creating a forum account before. But the granting of AA's has angered and upset me to the point where, if I hadn't just renewed my annual account, I would quit.
I've spent the last four or five years grinding AA's. However, now I find that was a waste of time (and thus money), and that by paying SOE anyone can have the same as me. I cannot find the words that describe my feelings adequately (not on a family forum, that is)

Wait.... wlhat? You don't even make sense! The old timers are opposing entitlement. /facepalm

question how is changing an already dead class like mine gonna affect overall performance ?

Hi Folks !

I did not read all of this thread, so sorry if this has been mentioned before.

I can understand the reasoning behind autogranting AA's. It might help players to catch up.

However, i would prefer to be able to choose if i want autogranted AA for my character or not. I have been levelling a Beastlord to 81 atm. With a very few exceptions, i made one level at a time and then bought all available AA for that level before starting on the next level. I have two friends i usually group with and they do the same, as we already have 2 - 3 Chars at level 100 that are maxed. Levelling this way, we can do a lot of old content without rushing through it and still getting exp for the mobs and the quests.

For me those forced autogranted AA would kill the fun of levelling my twinks and would make a lot of the old content obsolete.

I would prefer if i could claim / opt-in whatever possibilities there are to choose what i prefer for each char.

I hope you would consider an option to choose / opt-out for everyone who whishes that.

Thanks for reading.

Tlail

So these changes have been planned / developed and ready to rock already right?
Can those working on AA need not waste their time spending on whats going to be free. And I know if i can just /afk my 85+ toons while Sony PL's them.

If this is a forgone conclusion i may as well roll some alts to 85 ready for a Sony PL(for $18) or go play a different MMO for now. kind of pointless working AA or content at moment on toons i have

Hey Piestro when are you going to address the concerns about nerfing Shining Bastion outside of its capacity for swarming?

High Priestess is your 2.0 title, no one's taking that away from you. Your Exarch title for earning 42 AA, which is the one that would be affected, isn't anything to be proud of, princess.

This is the first time I have ever been angry enough to actually post something here, the way you are going about stopping SK swarming shows you haven't even taken the time to understand how it is done, all you have to do is change Mortal Coil, hell take it away completely for all I care but to screw with our epic seriously hurts our ability to tank not only in groups but in raids as well.

Epic is essential for when things go wrong on a raid or group and you end up having to tank multiple mobs for a short time to give people a chance to recover, we click epic, visage of death and a defensive disc and we can survive hopefully long enough to stabilize things. A big part of what keeps us alive is the healing from riposte damage when you have multiple mobs, by multiple I mean 2 to 4 not whole zones, without that our DPS is nowhere near enough to be significant.

If you put a hit counter on Mortal Coil you end swarming, the whole idea with SK swarming is to pull lots of mobs to get tons of riposte damage to heal you. Without Mortal Coil proccing multiple times per pull it can't be done, if you put a counter of 75 or 100 hits on it that will be gone in a matter of seconds on a swarm pull but will still be useful when tanking 2 or 3 mobs at a time.

I think he has a valid poit here why not just give NPC a death touch when more than 50 are grouped up this will stop the majority of the swarm killing/kiting.
As to the granting of AA's I am totaly with you on this and think it is a great idea and might well bring old players back to the game.

I also wanted to point out, that I think a few might already have, this will not stop "swarming" activities for the slayer achievements. Which I believe has cause a lot of this problem, and for farming old tradeskill items. No one needs any of these abilities to run to a pop zone, grab the entire thing, and use a merc or a bot or if a tank, not even those to kill the entire zone then loot for tradeskills. The solutions made by the dev's will stop some of the swarming, but not all of it by a long shot. I really dont mind the changes for the betterment of the game. I would just like to point out that the solutions do not truely fix the problems that you are trying to address.

Mechanically speaking, watching the AA xp bar fill up, gaining an AA point and then spending that point all feel rewarding on a basic level. Earning something to spend and then placing it in a place of the player's choosing engages the player by both offering the sense of reward and customization. I feel that by granting the player AA's (either points, or the abilities themselves) automatically upon leveling takes away a piece of one of the core experiences of EQ, that of earning greater power.

I do very much understand the concern with how overwhelming new players can feel when presented with so many choices and the thought of having to obtain over 4000 AA points to be relevant at the higher levels.

Would it be possible to greatly reduce the amount of xp required to obtain AA points under a certain amount? I've heard of other games reducing the amount of xp necessary to level up so that new players and reach the older players faster. Would something like this be possible in EQ? 4000 AA's doesn't seem so bad when you earn them 5 or 10 at a time after killing a mob or completing quests. It still gives the sense of accomplishment of earning the reward, but at a much faster rate. This would also have the added benefit of allowing players to not be so afraid of picking the "wrong" AAs early on because they are easily obtained. AA's could also be rewarded for completing things like achievements and Hero's Path quests. AA's feel good when they are earned, (even from minor tasks) and less important if they are handed out.

Perhaps the same could be said for leveling xp. Greatly reducing the amount of xp required to level sub 85 or so might go a long way to helping lower players catch up to the higher level players without trivializing the effort the higher level players put forth when the older content was current.

Headshot?!?!? REALLY?!?!?! After multiple nerfs already you're saying that you still haven't gotten it right? While your problem statement targets berzerkers, magicians, and wizards, and says little to nothing about how headshot contributes to the server problem, you still want to include rangers in your nerf?

I'm thinking the next nerf will probably be to the pocket book.

Thanks for the reply Piestro I am just trying to come up with ideas that will help the server issues while allowing people to enjoy the abilities they have had for years. You are right people will always find a way even with these changes I am sure people will still find a way to cause problems. Possibly a combination of the limiting these things to 12 mobs and changing the counter on some buffs like the SK players have suggested could work. Basically make it so if you pull more then 12 mobs you are going to have something beating on you that you can't do anything about. I haven't tried to suggest more leashing because I am sure that at this point that would be to hard to code, but would be all for that.

Dont nerf rangers and dont give away the AA. Make them come faster. But, dont just give them away.

That is all.

I think you should take out the AA's that are not fun such as CA/CS/Planar Power/Crit so on and so forth and grant those as innate abilities. Downsize the AA page to one tab with useful/fun AA's

This may have been put out there already but another solution is just granting passive AAs up to Underfoot. This allow new players get those benefits while allowing them to select and learn how to use the activated ones. This neatly sidesteps the issue of new players getting abilities they do not know how to use.

Why not instead of auto granting these AA's, just put an NPC in PoK like on Beta who can grant you AA's to your level? Same thing and the choice is left to the users.

Also, as far as SK's not having a tanking role because of the riposte lich change, Warriors have been doing it that way for years. You can too.

This would be like getting pissed because I had to learn how to drive in a stick shift (manual transmission) and car manufacturers are now offering automatic transmission cars to new buyers...

I made an sk so I could swarm, now its taken away, and honestly so will my account