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

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Piestro, Feb 4, 2014.

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  1. Cafe Mocha New Member

    AA Grant for Gold Members

    One of the consistent points of feedback we have received from both existing and returning players to EverQuest is that the massive numbers of Alternate Abilities that are available in game can create a barrier for some players to progress their characters. Over the last several years, we’ve polled players in game and engaged in discussions on this topic on the forums and at live events.

    After carefully considering your feedback and weighing our options, our current plan is to grant all AAs up to four expansions behind the current expansion. This will allow players to quickly get up to speed without completely eliminating the need to invest time in their character. Currently this will bestow the AAs up to and including Underfoot, but when we publish our next expansion, characters will receive the House of Thule AAs. Note that accounts must be Gold (after the membership changes, SOE All Access) to receive the auto-granted AAs and other requirements such as character level and pre-requisite abilities must also be met.


    I'm curious if we can "opt out" of the AA grant. My RL friends and I play EQ regularly and adopted a "progressive" style for our group. We are going through each expansion, zone by zone, and doing all quests. We will be screwed and our whole game experience ruined if suddenly we had all the aa for expansions we haven't even started or zoned into were handed to us for free. So, can we "opt out?"
  2. Gyphon New Member

    One of the issues that I've not seen in the many pages of replies *I've not viewed all* is that being in a raiding guild we have min aa requirements. This giving of unearned aa's ether makes us rethink how we recruit or should I say whom. This issue isn't limited to my guild but to every guild that puts value in the commitment players have shown in the reflection of aa's they do have when app'n. Now that being said we have always chosen quality of player over meeting or exceeding requirements but the question begs to be asked....Why put more weight on our shoulders? Do we switch from min aa's required to min days played? If so then we need to be able to use an ingame command to verify what a toons play time is.

    We have given you at Sony a loan with this last expansion so you could afford to pay your devs for a product to be given out over a years time and not all at once. Do you need us to front you another loan for you to buy better hardware as well?

    The classes marked for this next round of nerfs well, don't you think going over logs and giving certain players and accounts the Sony smack down instead of going after the classes as a whole would be a better resolution?
  3. Scribe of Fury New Member

    It took Piestro like 60-something pages to address the auto granting AA issue with the question I was going to ask: What about the useless AAs that nobody ever bothers putting points into? And he answered it in such an unsatisfying way.

    "Why does it matter if you have Innate Charisma?" What the heck am I going to do with that? Or with Innate Lung Capacity, they are just taking up unnecessary amounts of AAs I could put into something useful and necessary for my survival. I'm not a hardcore player, I'm really only a casual one and I goof around a lot.

    I play a Monk--level 90 with only like 1500 AAs, but I try my hardest to put them all into things that matter to me and make me able to actually fight in zones my level (no dice, still.) Some people may say I just suck, but what good is getting auto-granted 4,000+ AAs going to do for me if they're all useless ones too?

    I've watched my character grow and become steadily more powerful over time, and I do think getting those AAs all at once is a good and a bad thing. It really does take away from the experience of actually achieving something. I'm not someone who has been playing since 1999, and this is realistically coming from someone who is highly outdated in EverQuest.

    I still haven't seen a single Dev consider the "opt out" option in this thread yet, and that is most disheartening. Not everyone is going to want to just have those AAs shoved down their throats, so why not seriously read more comments? I'm not gonna lie, I haven't read every single comment because mostly people are all saying the same things. I've just read Dev comments to see what they've actually considered and replied to.

    Now as for the other issue, I don't do any of the swarm methods. But from what a lot of people have said, nerfing a Shadowknight is going to ruin their usefulness to themselves and in groups--at least nerfing them to this extent. Yes, you should get rid of swarming because it is causing server issues. But you need to compensate them for what they're losing--and you probably shouldn't mess with Rogues or Rangers. I don't know much about Berserkers and don't really care, but people seem adamant about leaving them alone too.

    Anyway, if you're going to get rid of swarming as a means for people to power level, I really think you should do something about the painful amount of time it takes to level up past 85. Hell, I've had trouble since my 70s, and again people might just say I'm "bad" at the game but whatever...The amount of time it takes to level up is staggering, and fighting in places without tons of AAs is a non-option. I need levels to get more AAs unlocked, but I need AAs to be able to fight in harder zones to have a higher experience rate. The difficulty-experience ratio is ridiculous in some places, because I can't even do a simple quest in House of Thule killing snakes because they hit for like 5,000 damage and I'd probably only get like 2-3% for the quest. Where's the sense in that? I have to downgrade to level 85 zones like Old Bloodfields where I get barely ANY experience and am stuck farming AAs that aren't all available to me because I'm not higher than 90.

    It's just...really damn stupid.

    I hope one of the many Devs does read this and my thoughts on the subject are met with a positive outlook and not hostility, because that's something I see far too much of in this game from other players. But, that's another problem altogether.
  4. usa63t New Member

    If you are able to implement some compromise where people are able to keep the abilities they have with the limitations myself and others have suggested. Could you add in an easy to use report feature that allows the players to try and help police the people still working around the fixes you put in place. Since myself and others can see with some tweeks players are still going to find a way to disrupt things. Give us the ability to help pinpoint the problem offenders. Hit /report soandso and you get a pop up with a reason like spam, lagging a zone etc pick a few things that people should not be doing and let us point out who is doing it. This would hopefully help cut things down to instances and empty zones which should be easy to see who was in them at the time.
  5. Dumpler New Member

    Why not starting at lvl 51 just auto-grant 80aa per lvl? That way a player could focus on lvling if they feel like and not have to switch back and forth.

    If you are higher lvl with fewer aa's just grant what the difference is.

    Of course you would have to lose the banked aa limit.
  6. Furbykiller New Member

    I don't know alot about swarming but could you not just limit the number of mobs that can target a single character would that not stop zone swarming?
    And from my point of view messing with the Warrior class is a bad thing warriors are already a invalided class as it is with merc tanks being better at tanking then any PC Warrior could with out raid gear.
  7. Orennex New Member

    I see where folks will be upset, but I think all these changes will actually improve the overall game play and bring it back to the way it was intended to be. I know when I first started playing a year or two after release, the only swarm pulling I saw was what was chasing me out of Crushbone.
    There is a sense of accomplishment in racking in AA's, but most of the time that is all you are doing. I'm a Ranger on my main and I definitely know about living on C2 in Doomfire for some insane AA grinding. There is much more out there that should be explored and I definitely see an unfair advantage in some of these abilities. I mean it's blindingly obvious. Not to mention I think it detracts from the functionality and immersion of the game.

    As for granting the AA's it's going to help eliminate the need to farm lower camps and will allow people to finally go through the newer content that is available to them at any level range. The way I see the granting of AA's, is that it will be just like getting regular levels. It improves your stats and makes new spells and skills available to you.

    I'm an Explorer and I love to see new places. I think this patch will allow people to not just camp the places that get them the most AA XP (Like I have) and actually get out and about and create a more active population in LFG for all level ranges. I look forward to losing my swarm pulling headshot madness because I only do it to grind AA's. Now I wont have to! I think this patch is awesome, it makes sense and I completely support it.
  8. Xorsazis Augur


    They already have a Defensive disc comparable to ours. Had it for awhile now.
    They have more than enough to keep themselves going. This isn't going to "kill their role" by any means.
  9. Ultima New Member

    I have ZERO intention of playing your EQ Next.

    Swarming is a form of cheating and exploitation and I am glad you are finally doing something about it.

    Giving away or worse selling AA and Levels is another form of CHEATING.

    Why would I play a game where cheating is legitimate ?

    If you think this is such a great idea than just make one CHEATING server like your old 51/50 server and sell Levels and AA to your hearts content.

    This is enough of a digression from what was Everquest to cause me to leave the game once and for all.

    All my accounts cancelled , I vote with my pocketbook

    Feel free to send me an Email when you have an original form of Everquest to play.
    Morningdew and Thinn Lizzy like this.
  10. Dances Journeyman

    Could this just be a set up for Everquest Next?


    if it is I wont be playing...........
    Omniscience likes this.
  11. Izcurly Augur

    It doesn't. However, if they aren't getting rewarded for doing so, their motivation to do so goes away, so it's not going to be a common situation like it is with swarming now.
  12. Stahn New Member

    Well I've thought about this a great deal. My feelings on the swarming nerf are that it needs to be done although what has been proposes seems like overkill. I think you are going to have a crap-ton of unintended consequences though up to and including breaking some classes in some horrible ways. Be ready for that and try and have the fixes ready.

    As for the AA grants, well, there are just too many aa's. They need to either be consolidated or significantly reduced in their cost or both. I don't think any but the most shortsighted of players would agree with this. The massive number of aa's are truly a roadblock for new players and it needs to ne addressed. But just giving away thousands of aa's is not the way to go. Why not cut the cost of 3-3-6-6-9-9...etc per rank to 1-1-2-2-3-3 etc... At the same time increase the aa xp rate up to level 80 or 85 or wherever underfoot tops out at. Another option would be to get rid of the banked aa cap below a certain level allow players to start building aa xp at level one and start banking aa's as they level. By the time they get to the point where they can use the aa's they will likely have hundreds if not thousands already banked. I have also read at least a dozen other viable aa paths here in this thread that are better ideas than just handing out thousands of aa's.

    I strongly agree with the intentions of the Devs on both the swarm kiting and AA issues but I think you really need to take your time and put some more thought into how best to address them. Either way thank you for coming to us with this. Whatever happens, I won't be leaving the game but if this had just been sprung on us in an update with no warning I'd probably be over at DDO as we speak.
    Roxxanna likes this.
  13. Underbrush Elder

    I'm honestly surprised they didn't consider a solution similar to their compromise on the Station Cash issue. Hail a NPC every day, get 20 aa or something like that.
  14. Axum New Member


    Except Throne of Heros, Expedient Recovery and Lessons what others do you use? The recovery time for most of the "Rewards" is outright ridicules to be blunt.

    Just because your happy with the crumbs given you doesnt mean I have to be. The true issue is balance. If your going to give away the store to bring in new income you best not ignore the established customer. Obviously, Im not the only one that feels this way.
    Atrocitas, Morningdew and Thinn Lizzy like this.
  15. Mintalie Augur

    That's why there's an application, and screening, and references, and a trial period in guilds. It's very easy to ferret out the PLed characters already. In fact, there's a built in tool that tells when a character was created that could easily thin the herd.
  16. Ragnard Elder

    I completely agree with the "swarming" changes - many classes are saying "why did you change me, mages are worse!" and what not, but the point should be understood that they want to end all forms of mass killing equally and prevent the next big thing which will be the lesser swarming methods.

    Things I think devs should consider before going through with this:

    1. Maybe the AA auto granting should be optional or you should be able to spend the AA point yourself. I personally don't have a problem with max UF AAs @ 85, but there are some valid arguments about detrimental AAs or players who want to get them "the hard way."

    2. If we're auto-granting this many AAs, the average new player is going to have a very limited understanding of what many class defining AAs do. When they were spending hard-earned AA points on them, they were googling/researching before spending the points. Better AA descriptions are in order to help with this.

    3. Consider each class and whether this change will be a detriment to their normal game play in a group setting, then try to minimize or reverse that impact. You can be certain that the SK, for example, will be getting less healing when pulling the normal 1-3 mobs at a time that most groups handle. Do you plan to make up for that by increasing the power of the weapon-based lifetap effects or just let them eat the additional reduction in power?
  17. Mayfaire Augur

    I think I love you. :p
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  18. Siddar Augur


    They have alts that can gain AA from this.

    People also miss that most people who haven't maxed AA yet will gain some AA from this. I have a bard with 9200 AA and once this goes into effect ill have a bard with around a 10.000 AA. Most players have vast swaths of UF and prior AA sitting in general AA tab that most would never ever bothered to get. Now they will gain those automatically.

    I've known a few people that did the don't level until you have maxed AA for current level, but they were very rare.
  19. moogs Augur

    The argument that auto-granting AAs (activated AAs in particular) means that some players might level up not knowing "how to play their class" is kind of nullified because many of the people making this point are the very same people who are too afraid to group with strangers. Nothing lost here.
    Orennex and Tanit like this.
  20. Kolani Augur

    Swarmers do make large sections of the game unplayable. Feerrott is especially bad since a large part of progression in that zone requires you to kill and loot items at the Temples.
    moogs likes this.
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