Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

I play both a mage and a ranger...i understand doing away with beam kiting and the lag issues it is causing, but why mess with rangers again?? there are only a few zones that rangers can headshot in effectively.. same as the rogues, its our solo tool when we can't find a group or don't want to be in one. i stopped playing a ranger when you first started your nerfing, and with the changes made over the years it was actually fun again to play. now you have ruined it yet again ..I agree with Harabakc, make another higher lvl ability and leave what wasnt broken alone....oh, and all the AA I have worked for over the years, your just going to give to people now? I would like to be reimbursed on all my toons the AA I have worked for and spent time doing....give to the people who put in the time getting thousands of AA the real way...your "free AA" on top of what they have already to spend as they wish...so that my time wasnt wasted....or reimburse me the money i have paid since 2000....

I don't think you understand what I am saying. It wasn't YOUR turn to be Little Johnny this time. Next month it would have been, because by then your apple would have been the biggest. SOE is just saving time by including your class this time around. As for how much it will hurt? What can I say? Yours won't be the first class where SOE threw the nerf bat out the window and picked up a nice solid Louisville Slugger, it won't be the last.

When people create alts or even the rare occasion of a player who is a completely new customer creates a new char, they want to level and gain as many aa as FAST as possible, the way to currently do it is find a sk or a mage, and have them do their thing.

Take that option away, eq becomes a waste of time to most normal people, you know, the ones with real jobs/school/family and so on, and only the true hardcore players have the patience to grind aa every day for 1000 hours before they get to a point where the char becomes fun to play.

Now, to battle that, soe comes up with, ok fine we nerf PL, so we replace it with instant 85 chars and some aa.

Problem is, people like being PL'ed, and they like to PL their own alts and guldies, heck Ive had so many aspiring little sk's and rangers (and mages) all coming to me for PL, so they one day can do it themself to the army of alts they want to box.
By nerfing PL, you are seriously giving the finger to a lot of loyal current players.. A LOT.

Not all of us like to raid or have the time for it, but we do enjoy logging on when no one else is on, and take our own little group on a mission... Why do you feel the need to force us to interact with others?
What is wrong with playing your own char and your alts?
I don't have time to interact with others when Im in game, I just want to get my epics, run a few missions, work on my faction and so on.

Here is an idea for you, create a soloserver where you can have 5 merc that follows you around and kill stuff. Or even better make it a raidforce, 34 merc, so I can run some RoF raids and stuff like that, Im never going to be able to spend all the time needed sucking up to a guild leader and spend all of my sunday afternoons doing /rand for loot for a year before I get the piece of armor I want.

Again with the 3-5 mobs thing? 3-5 mobs are not going to come close to getting through the 800 hit counters via riposte. Repeatedly say it doesn't make it true.

Will do.

That was the old way about 6 ex pacs ago at lvl 80. There is no place you can do this at lvl 100. Show me where please and don`t say Library because like previous posters have said, it is not efficent and YOU HAVE TO RELY ON MC TO PROC to finish or you DIE. I`m sure now you have never swarmed and are trolling.

OK. So I just spent the weekend with five friends, all of whom played EQ for at least 3 - 4 years, and have not played in at least 3-4 years. I talked with them about the proposed changes...and here's what they had to say..

1. As far as the swarm kite/ HS/ Decap/ etc nerfing - AWESOME. They were very stoked about the thought of hot zones and popular grinding zones not being camped by 2-3 yahoos that have all the time in the world on their hands. Gah that used to make me so angry too.....some cat just hanging out pulling an entire zone for 8 hours straight....wtf....


2. For the AA "opt in" program.....First of all - If you didn't opt into the free 4k AAs, wouldn't that make you....you know.....a moron? I get it, it's "fun" to AA at low levels and experience old content, but is that really worth hours, days, weeks of your life when at the click of a button you can have it instantly? I know some of you have mentioned you will not opt in right away, and please don't think I'm calling you a moron, but I would put money on each of you eventually opting in.....it's the sensible thing to do.

Second, they felt like the few times they had come back and tried EQ, and the AAs they grinded, were now completely pointless if everyone is going to get them free instantly anyways. Don't get me wrong, they LOVED the idea of getting more AAs and catching up to where they should be, but the fact that all their hard work already put in was all for nothing really made them more angry than anything. They were all very interested in options like the following - "Every 10 levels you get XXX amount of AAs to spend to help you catch up", or "The AA lvling curve has been increased so you may now receive AA bonus XP up until 5k AA". I told them Devs on the forums had "Discussed these options, but opted to go a different route". Well, they brought up a good question....Why did you "opt not to go this route"? No solid answer has been given as to why we can't go a route like this.

Take this as honest customer feedback from more than just a single boxer. THe group I was with holds about 15 accounts among them, and we STILL TO THIS DAY talk about how much we loved EQ.

I honestly dont wanna see any class get nerfed. I was just tryin to point out alot of people making it sound like this would turn them into a nonfunctional class and i would disagree. All i was saying and everyone is entitled to their opinion. I thought the nerfs to warriors was unneeded but i havent posted it broke the class or griped about it on forums i just knew my char well enuff to work around it. Way i see it posting here is good if u have solid facts to back it up parses compiled to show them. Not random people saying this will break a class from tanking 5 or 6 or 7 mobs at time. As i said before that wont be a class issue as much as it wil be a gear and skill issue.

Bashan

Yeah - I wondered if it was something like that (I am UK) after Piestro said that their lawyers would not support the argument that it is covered by the EULA as being their intellectual property. Although at one point I had thought they used that to cover certain other sales / uses of in game created materials shall we say

I don't know much about warrior nerf but sk's are getting proposed nerf to multiple pieces of gear,disc,and aa BIG DIFFERENCE. Countless times we told devs take away mortal coil it will end swarming at 100 from what i hear swarming really isn't even option anymore. Sk's rely on light blue cons to do this job.

I do agree with you false info is bad for the nerfs and tryin to zero in on the happy median yall looking for. I only wanted say i didnt think this was gonna break the class. It would go alot better if some brought in parses to show actual feedback to show them. Alot of sk posting here some more of yall have to have info to show your point of view. Give them parses as i think that would help more with this.

Bashan

Reducing the cost 4 expansions back is more in line with how MMOs age. Generally, old content is not necessarily given away for free, but becomes easier to obtain or experience over time. I don't know how many people were up in arms when Underfoot zones no longer required flags to enter years after that expansion was released. When new ranks of AA's for my critical abilities are released, I will absolutely grind out the points to buy them. I'm not going to wait 2-3 years for them to be reduced in cost, or even care when that happens.

My main problem with the auto grant of AA's is that I don't think it will accomplish what everyone wants, while also simultaneously removing the ability to customize characters for individual play styles. Blasting everyone with several thousand AA's will just create a massive wall at 85. Yes, you will be able to jump right into that content faster, but to be effective as you progress you will still need to grind out the later levels of your core abilities. However, that will take much longer because your AA bonus was spent of stuff you don't necessarily need or want. I think people who actually want to level and experience current content will figure out that the more logical path means holding off on the auto grant while grinding out 1-2k AA first. That seems like it defeats the whole purpose.

Lowering the cost of old AA instead allows people to catch up quickly and build their characters to suit their individual situation. If the old AA were reduced to 1 point apiece, most classes could get the bulk of what they need with a couple hundred AA, leaving them in great shape for the run to 100. They could then choose to take advantage of the AA bonus to continue on higher cost core abilities, or keep cherry picking the older nice to haves. It also allows for the people that want Subtlety, or Tradeskills, or whatever to take it and others to leave it alone.

I find these arguments silly. The game is almost impossible for anyone New or Returning that have the daunting task of trying to be viable with no one to help them. I play a Warrior...I have to have thousands of AA's to be viable... and that doesnt even start with the Armor/Augs I also need. If new players try to play a warrior or a returning player and they have no friends. They will find the game impossible.. and frustrating. The game is a solo game up to level 85. Most players that are under that level are alts being Power leveled... There is very little in group game before then unless you have a guild or friends who are doing the same. So allowing these players an option to get the AA;s they need without the time to get them and allowing them to catch up to where others are will only help the game not harm it. Players can then focus on what is needed. No grind for weeks on end doing same content because they do not learn their class doing that. No one finds a challenging area to exp.. they find a sweet spot that is easy and can be done fast. SO there is NO class learning. Now players can skip that and play their class instead of grind alone.

People who think this is a handout are correct. It is a handout. But I challenge them to play on a low population server fresh with no help and no guild and with a class like a warrior. Starting from scratch and doing it, and seeing how long it takes to make it to be viable and ready to Group content and or Raid. Now here is the key, you at least have knowledge already on how to do it and where to go. New players or returning will not. So you have to realize as you grind that they are having to figure this out themselves. Doing that alone makes people more likely to get frustrated and quit.

Is this the right change.... well its about the only thing they can do without just giving us the EQ2 version of buying premade level 85 characters. At least doing it this way, you will still need to level your character and get gear and items. Its not a free character. It just means that you dont need to spend weeks grinding for AA's you can skip those and go straight for the meat and potatoes of getting gear and augments and getting into group content and Raids. This will bring in more people than it will remove. And now you can make an alt and try a new class without having to power level them for weeks on end. Which should help fill up guilds that are missing some classes and struggle with power leveling up characters and alts to fill those roles.

They already said heroic characters are coming. With them killing most of that powerleveling market the task will be just as bad before except now people will be paying sony for the powerlevel and not some random nice guy.

This

Honestly, wow I'm just shocked at how terrible these decisions are, 4 expansions worth of AAs.... that's it lol that's terrible!

Talk about the worst possible fix for the problems of AAs & Leveling......... Bizarre, and seems to me like a great way to kill a game

i see sk saying a lot about the raid sk and how the nerf needs to be fixed for the better for them, but the raid ppl are very often the ones in the non raid zones making things bad for the group ppl ... maybe if ppl were more considerate of others not as uber as they are there would be more understanding, but i just don't see that happening ... it may only be some that do those things but those some ruin it for all

/sigh

So rather than listen to a number of SKs posting here that changing or removing Mortal Coil will kill swarming, they decide to expand the changes to include BP effects! Why change all of the above when changing one ability will fix the issue without the risk of crippling the class?

because it will not cripple them. The idea that it somehow cripples them I have yet seen evidence of this. They still will be very viable they just will not have the ability to swarm.. again Im not sure the real impact of this as no one seems to have explained the negative to that.

Because everyone knows removing mortal coil only won't stop it