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

Why destroy a play style and class by nerfing instead of fixing the actual problem?

When I see what some SK are capable of, it reminds me of what warriors are capable of when they had an earthshaker, zone disruption and an unbalanced way to gain XP compared to other classes.

I'm very familiar with how rogues can exploit knife's return strike so assasinate. Once we got knives return strike, it allowed to to exploit counterattack. If you're a rogue, I understand you're upset, even though we can cause zone disruption, our assasinate ability is not OP, it is not a good way to gain XP, part of our fun gets taken away. And many 2 hander classes like monks and warriors are better at killing trains than us. But I still agree with the nerf if it causes server instability.

Other classes, I don't know. All I know is that the SK nerf is justified. It is way too reminissent (sp?) of shakerpaging to me.

I've never understood why not just aggro-chain link them to their spawn point, so if X mob moves X amount away it just runs back..

Honestly half of the issues listed here will go away with that.. swarming will be almost non existant, no more beaming, headshotting or the likes.

I got to about page 25 then i skipped to the end.

The shaman Fatigue/Sloth line procs a hot, no direct heal. There is no multiplying effect to having it proc more. There's a reason it doesn't have a counter.

So now with the nerf, clerics/druids/pallys cast their heal proc buff, pull a mob ,and get their direct heal for every swing, let's say 100hps/heal per proc. They get hit 10 times in that combat round, they get healed for 1000 hps.
Shaman casts his heal proc, pulls a mob, and gets a heal over time on the first swing, let's say 100 hps/tick. Mob then hits them the remaining 9 times, but shaman only gets the benefit of the initial hot, so he gets his 3 ticks of 100hps for 300 hps total. That is 300 hps vs 1000 hps healed.

Oh but the shaman buff has more counters for more procs so its ok, right? No it isn't.

Now the cleric/pally/druid pulls 5 mobs, and gets hit 10 times from each mob, and now gets healed 5000 hps.
The shaman pulls 5 mobs, gets hit 10 times from each mob, and now gets healed.....the same 300 hps. Now it's 300 hps vs 5000 hps.

The power of the direct heal is multiplied by more mobs, the power of the hot is not. Again, there's a REASON it never had counters (and also why the mana to cast it was kept low).

And while we're on the subject and apparently Devs are reading, all of these buffs are BUGGED on mercenaries. When tank mercenaries use disciplines, the buffs start proc'ing the debuff (slow/attack debuff/stun, whatever) onto the mercenaries instead of the heal/hot, and this behavior persists after the discipline wears off. This has been /bug reported /feedbacked, and posted on for YEARS.

Moving back and full regenning, as to prevent tether kiting.

Instead of dumbing down the game yet again to bring in WoW players don't auto grant AA's, If they want all the AA"s then let them buy one of the level 85 toons that will be available. Let people decide if they want the AA upgrade or EARN them and have some accomplishment in the game and not having everything handed to them

Here is the thing, When everquest first adopted the AA system, it was never meant to be forced upon the players as a "must have" to be able to progress a charector, It was meant to allow players to Choose certain abilities and skills that would allow them to set their charector apart from other peoples, i think its absolutlely absurd that you "Have" to have a certain amount of aas to even be able to consider progressing a charector, And while i agree with the AA grant, I would like to point out that it should be our choice what we decide to put those aa's into, and perhaps maybe make some changes to the game that make it so AA's are more of a choice, then a requirement, I played this game from right around release, to PoP then i quit for 9 years or so, i just came back From WoW because of this very same reason, Your killing the game which is still a viable source of entertainment and income..... I was actually considering going gold, until i read that i will be forced to take whatever aa choices are given to me, and that because of that forced agenda, my leveling will be more difficult then it is already due to the necessity of said "aa's"

I can answer this..

It robs the sense of accomplishment, having earned something that's now going to be free. We spend time 'working' towards goals we set for ourselves in game, knowing that achieving our goals makes us a little better than those who have not yet put in the time to earn whatever it is.. AA, achievement, titles, or levels.

Giving something away for free takes away the difining characteristics that most of us had to earn.

Hey, everything in my life came pretty easy. Pick better parents next life.

Here's the thing, the game has changed a lot in the past 12 years. AAs are a requirement of playing correctly now, whether it's character enhancement or abilities that are more-or-less required in today's development.

That said, I'm not for free AAs. However you will likely be purchasing many of the auto-granted ones and saving yourself time / experience gain ultimately due to this change.

Thanks for the update, Elidroth!

Powerleveling drives sales of Kronos... I just don't get how it makes sense to nerf all powerlevelers instead of the mechanics that disrupt the game.

I keep (kept, I guess) five accounts at gold status through Kronos purchased via the bazaar/trade channels...

Necro
Bard
Shaman
Ranger
Cleric

The cleric I only kept for Shining Bastion... Gone. The ranger to PL alts/friends/guildmates and to pay for said Kronos... Gone. The Shaman for buffs... Gone, since I'm a member of the top guild on the server and have access to most buff almost 100% of the time. The Bard will songbot just fine at silver and 8500 aa's... Gone. I'll keep the max AA Necro at Gold for now because I don't want to give up hope entirely, but honestly if I have to start paying for this game again I will be fully retiring in a heartbeat.

There's $72 a month worth of virtual product that Sony will no longer be receiving from my end. I know it's a grain of sand in the grand scheme, but such senseless and across the board nerfs to all classes when there was only one major culprit involved is just absurd. If mages beam had been fixed months ago to match wizards we absolutely would not be having this conversation.

I saw one of the red names post around page 15 or 20 trying to shift the blame to devs of the past making poor decisions... What a weak excuse.

I'm standing behind my theory that a few of the devs or biggest lobbyists play mages and are throwing a temper tantrum and trying to destroy as much as they can since they themselves have to take a well deserved hit.

Have you ever heard in your life that work can also be fun? I am just expressing my feelings, I wasn't asking for corrections, number one reason right there why I'm never in a group, if I'm not playing right or God forbid posting right I'm gonna hear it! lol and where's the fun in that?

I get that argument, but I still disagree somewhat with it.

Newbees right now are playing in an era where there are far less people to group with.

For a newbee being a zone on their own, it takes far more work to get the same AA than when the expansion was current.

They need help in some way. Defiant helped, but I don't think it's enough. Simple things like DON AA, getting enough AA, having a group, getting buffs, getting a rez, having friends explaining things,....hell.. having someone to talk to in your group. All of those things are vastly different now than when you got those AA.

People sometimes say EQ is now easier, I don't think this is necessarily true. EQ is quite a bit easier when the expansion is current than having to catch up.

I had to earn over $700.00 for my phone I bought a little over 2 years ago. They are now giving it (and a better version of it) away free to new customers and people who want to switch phones. I feel cheated too.

You're correct that there was no polling on Vox, but only because the Vox server DIDN'T EXIST when the poll in question happened.

Other that than, you're completely wrong, there has been an in-game poll on this subject. And the results of that poll, regardless of the how you spin it, involve WAY more people than these forums do, so are probably more indicative of reality than all the ranting any of us have done for any viewpoint.

In regard to the cleric spells your nerfing..this will greatly effect the way we raid in a negative way. Will take us back a step and not allow some tanks to participate. More later...

Thanks, will do

I don't see how these nerfs are correcting the problem. The same zones will still have the same mobs. I propose that if these changes go live then we should just run around a zone until we have as many mobs as we possible can and see who get the largest train for the longest time. As I said previously fix the actual problem.

IE update hardware, fix pathing, put high CPU zones on there own, put in summoning mobs as required, put snaring mobs etc.

Many have suggested that you raise the AA bonus exp. If you were to raise it from 4k to 8k that would keep it in line with the current AA exp, and help those Gold members 85+ pushed over 4k, not have to grind AA slower than if they were selectively picking the AA spent.