Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

no, this will not be on the progression servers.

If you enjoy it then why would you stop? The opt out is the perfect choice for you.

Sorry i have ta ask this and i would love feedback from others including reds if possible.

I am wondering why the decision was made to a) make decap, assassinate, and head shot usable on mobs one lvl under the player, and leaving proc rate at 2 per minute when evin on current mobs that can be hit with them lvl 86 ta 88 specifically it takes several hits to put mobs down. With that eing said why change all of the abilities vs making them only work on mobs in the target window and able ta be used on mobs up to lvl 90, so those with these abilities dont end up pretty much dead on the spot.

Just curious and i would like ta see what sorta feedback will come from this, I mean if you cant decap head-shot or assassinate things not in your target window like Earthshaker now works where is the issue
And sorry ta all the critics i am nether good at spelling or punctuation.

I'm not going to dig up the post, but this will not go live for progression servers until they hit CotF...for now at any rate.

No other class deals with a hit limit on their epic, the Mortal Coil hit limit fixes the swarming problem as it is the sole ability that allows SK to swarm effectively. The hit limit on the epic is an overreaction.

Over the years we have seen an awful lot of dumbing down of EQ to 'level the playing field' between people who have thousands of AAs/have been playing for 10+ years and those who haven't.
Why?
It stands to reason that someone who has played a game, any game, for thousands of hours will have accomplishments/gear/whatever reward that someone who's just arrived hasn't.
Why would someone who doesn't want to spend those thousands of hours expect to have what someone who has invested that time has?
That's not how life works, but it seems to be how SoE wants to work here.
So, as others have said, this is (yet another) dumbing down of the game in giving for free (or cash if we look at it that way), something which others have worked hard to get.
Why should a new player expect to be playing in the endgame within a few weeks? Why do they need to 'catch up' with those who've been playing for 15 years? Are we saying that the massive amount of content they can do is no fun? worthless?
What message does that send to the veterans who have showed their loyalty to the game in terms of time and cash over the years?
This seems to be a mis-use of the Dev's time and energy.
We are losing playerbase because EQ is not keeping up with the hardcore player - not because there's nothing to do at level 30.
Most raid guilds beat the latest release in a few days. There was no new levels; no new AAs. So those people have gone away after a few days to do something else. They are probably still paying their subs so perhaps they don't matter? But they're not going to do this year in year out for a game where there is no gain.
If you dumb down the bottom end you need to counterbalance that with something to do at the top end - and there's no sign of that.
In other words, do this if you must - but it needs to be balanced by adding a lot of AA at the top end. Hard to get AA if you like. And content to match.
There should be things in game that someone who has played for 40 hours a week for 15 years can do that someone who has played for three hours a week for a short while can't. That is what's missing and this announcement goes completely the wrong way in addressing that

I believe asking the community on proposed changes **BEFORE** threatening to change many classes at once, would have made us, as a whole, feel significantly more valued. As gamers, as customers, as people.

Here's the thing.

You're removing abilities for "mass killing" and I understand that. The thing that a lot of us have been screaming is you don't need to touch the Epic click to end the mass killing. The mass killing is a result of MORTAL COIL.

Let's say that again so we're clear. The mass killing is a result of MORTAL COIL and NOT the LICH STING.

If any Dev/Coder/Anyone wants to meet up with me in-game and transfer me over to Test and remove Mortal Coil AA from my character, I'll pull the entire Kaesora Library and just use the Epic so you can see what happens. Spoiler: I go SPLAT after about 60 seconds.

No mortal coil proc = no swarm. It's that simple. I don't know how to much more of plain English I can lay this out.

I suspect a charm item scaling to AAs would be good alternative. Though, if tough to implement, you could add a teleport item (i.e. to Nexus, not game-ending due to availability of other ports). An illusion (i.e. Coldain, gnoll) with defensive/offensive mod may help.

If given the choice between leaving everything alone versus this decision to do the swarming nerfs and the AA grants, it comes down to what is going to do the least harm. Its my opinion that just leaving swarming unchecked and the AA acquisition alone would probably do more damage than anything being spelled out right now. Its not a vote about what you like the most with this, but which decision do you hate the least. Veteran players don't like change, but they don't hate it enough to the point where they are not still here. Otherwise they would not be veterans. People will complain and make the usual threats, but in the end we get past it like all the other changes over the past 15 years.

increase both mage and wiz beams to 30 mobs, would make it small enough not to pl and large enough to still be useful in a situation where say a named spawns 4 or 5 adds every x amount of percent health, the low hp mobs are normaly handeled in my groups by me while the tanks work on the named. 30 mobs would not be a pl amount, 30 mobs big enough to count wouldn't lag out a zone and would just eat the wiz or mage... I still say boo to the free aa's ive spent years of my life playing this game over a decade ive sat by silently while all the other changes have been made. ive spent years on my main grinding out aa's now its all pointless, my aa's are high enough I get no boost to them anyway but the fact the first couple years I spent working that toon are now pointless years. knowing you spent years doing something pointless and meaningless is not a good feeling

What's the command, /testcopy I believe?
Just wait until they patch the changes and see how it goes.

Wizard PBAoE's are currently irrelevant and stagnated into uselessness. Mages getting the same would not make them relevant.

Seems like some good compromises. The upping of HS/Assassinate/Decap to modern levels is a tad odd, especially the level 99 max part. I'd have figured it'd have at least stopped at like 96. But meh. As long as the proc rates diminish to be unable to make it crazy doesn't bother me any. Seems to have made people a lot happier too! Only a few people still complaining (It's a change to EQ, there will always be people complaining) and tossing around the gold-cancellation threats, and most if not all of them seem to be the people who claim they can't survive in EQ without masskill abilities (Grouping? Questing? Fun? Oh no, my numbers!) so meh.

Oh I will make one point though! Some have already made it, it seems, but just to toss my voice in on it too just to be sure. Make sure the option to receive auto-granted AAs is set to NO by default, but that people can receive it's benefits by turning it on regardless how long it's been since they leveled. That way people that don't wish to receive the auto-granted AAs don't log in on patch day when the features/nerfs go in and find themselves "earning" tons of AAs they wanted to work for.

Nice compromises though guys!

That's awesome! not the norm from what I've seen or heard from friends doing raids, but that many Mains as clerics and not being boxed and just sitting there haphazardly for the most part, very nice

wow somehow managed to totally mangle the reply, all from "quite simple" is mine.

Great basic idea.

I think there ought to be a difference between AAs granted and AAs EARNED when it comes to achievements.

You then tie rewards to AAs EARNED achievements. Whether it's a charm, bags, exp potions, etc., it requires separating AAs earned from AAs granted. So people are rewarded for doing it the hard way, but don't have to do it the hard way.

not to be overly pedantic, but that's not actually true.
druids also have a hit counter, and always have had one.

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.

I don't see why they're bothering to say suggestions are welcome, you are flat out gimping the chain classes out of what little solo abilities they had. You're pretending like giving a reduced effectiveness higher level version won't be worthless. Decap is the only one that isn't heavily restricted by mob type. A 100 caster of any kind with a wiz merc will be better off than rogues and zerkers for dealing with HoT mobs now. The game is anti melee enough as it is, why screw with what little tools we do have?