Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

When is this coming to test? I am excited to see the changes!

If me working for thousands of AA's, while someone else gets them free causes me to want some distinction between the 2 I'm an elitist jerk?

Makes sense. I'm an elitist jerk then.

How many times has the phrase "give us" been used in these threads. It's sickening.

How was that bashing? /boggle I am asking if these forums are the source of your info, and apparently the answer is yes. My point is that these forums aren't a statistically accurate representative of the EQ population.

Where are all the decision makers at ? Last post from SoE was at about 3 a.m. on like page 27 . Any final word please?

So many posts complaining about their work to develop characters vs. newbies getting freebies and a simple question to differentiate them in game gets me a jerk flag? What a schmuk.

Cleric
We have separated the damage absorption buff and the proc buff. All ranks of Shining Rampart, Shining Armor, and Shining Bastion will now trigger-cast Shining Defense, a spell which absorbs 10 percent of incoming damage. It has no damage cap, but will fade after its bearer takes 2000 hits. It has a player level for focus purposes but is not memorized on its own.

Where will the Shining Defense buff icon be? Have you taken into account max buff slots and shining defense wont land? This can be a problem with not enough buff slots, especially with sk all the self buffs. Im sure these changes will have stack issues with some warrior, pally, or sk combat abilities.

The problem with constructive solution is that SOE has already completed most of the coding for gifting aa's. They are not about to throw all of that away. That is why solutions such as increasing aa's for doing tasks like the hero's journey achievements, which would also teach players how to play their character, will not be listened to.

I have no doubt that they know all the negative feedback that the gifting was going to generate and that they had already planned on having the opt out/in option so that it would seem like they were meeting players requests half way.

I understand SOE's need to make money, this is after all business for them. But to pretend this will bring back players long term is ludicrous, as is anybody who believes that is the ultimate goal. This is nothing but an attempt to get silver accounts to upgrade to gold even if it is for only 1 month. And they are banking on those who threaten to quit to not really do so since that has been the case every other time people threatened to quit. The only time that people quit in droves was the release of underfoot. And that was mostly because people who "thought" that they were uber could not handle the expansion and/or lacked the intelligence or patience to figure the zones out.

I love all the hypocrites that complain about long term players not liking the aa gifting and stating that it does not affect your game play and mind your own business, but replying to those email means you are not minding your own business and other peoples opinion does not affect your game play. It's like a bleeding heart liberal calling somebody closed minded when people don't follow their view point of the world which is a closed minded attitude.

I personally would like ta hear from our Devs an their rep as none has made a post on anything for oh hum lets see here better than 8 hours now an seein as its past 3pm here i am pretty sure they are at work, an have been for awhile an would love ta hear them say something if on nothing else about all the gd flamming that folks are doing to those of us actually concerned about how things will play out here.

so any time a RED would like ta make a comment preferably sooner than later ta give folks somethin else ta feed on an shut the flammers up be nice.

I have a hard time doing dailies in the grounds without being lagged out because of the swarm crews running there. I am constantly getting verbally abused by zerkers, and sk/mage swarmers for trying to snag the 5 mobs needed to complete the task. I do the dailies to make up a little time lost while i spend most of my time farming item's for trade skills that I am working. I have also been trained a number of times in my attempt do the dailies by these classes who feel I am stealing their mobs, fortunately I am a monk and their attempts have been for not. I play this game to have fun, escape from real life issues and stress, and as the only entertainment I choose to afford. The abuses of these classes and abilities have truly been a real detriment to the fun and spirit of the game.

its really funny that several of us have the same question around the same time about the Red Suits hehe. Come out come out where ever you are

That is the point, there are so many enhancements put into this game as it stands. Accelerated AA's to 2000 then 4500, Hot zones, daily tasks, lvl 71 having Top Level Buffs, Marketplace as well as 6th Annv Potions, Lesson of the devoted, Chanty Learner, etc. etc.
Someone with a new toon to get to 95, with 4 to 6K AA only takes a fraction of the time it used to, and long enough for them to really know how to play the class.

There is no need for more of an 'easy button' to auto grant AA's of any amount. If SOE is hell bent on this, then grant the outdated ones like 'innate' and forage or trade skills.

All this auto-granting does is make new players horrible and old players army of alts get aa's quick w/o working for any of them.

They shouldnt be

They should be done in instance, agreed

Here's what I don't understand. Why can't we find a middle ground for both sides?

My side obviously thinks handing out 6kish AAs for $14.99 is bad for the game. I'm a vet, so my AAs have always been close to cap for several expansions. However, its not hurting us vets so much as its hurting the players that have spent the last some months grinding into the 6k AA range AAs from the ground up. In addition, although the idea of AAs is nothing more than a grind, it is also the process as to how a player ends up learning their class. They figure out what works for them, what doesn't. How this new AA works and when to use it. So to dismiss AAs as nothing more than sitting at a camp and seeing the AA ding isn't the whole scope of the situation.

The other side. Yes, you all want your boxes, your returning friends, and the new prospect of players that may come in to enjoy what the endgame and see what it is actually like. You want them to enjoy content that they can actually compete in without getting steamrolled by mobs because they only have 1kish AAs. I get it. I want that too!

So, where can both sides meet? At one end of the spectrum you have grind for weeks and weeks. At the other end you have "free" AAs in a click of the button. Can we get rid of both extremes and agree on a system that better tackles the problem? If you asked me, I would say adjust the experience bonus for AAs like it's been done in the past. Heck, make it a 1000% AA experience bonus without diminishing all the way to 6k AAs.

This about money. SOE wants it and we have it. The customer is "Always Right." SOE just created a few new methods to levy a bill.

For all those saying the devs are doing what needs to be done to keep the game alive. To me it feels like EQ is a boxer that doesn't know when to retire. personally id rather see gone before I see it fade anymore.

If they are going to go through with the AA grant why not just take it the next step and make a new lv85 tutorial and start every new toon at 85 with said AAs.

Stop beating around the bush.

14 year old account and long time lurker here, this is the first time I've ever felt compelled to post.

After digesting this info for a few days I have decided I agree with these changes, mostly. Power-leveling, on the scale seen today, needs to go away (especially if it is affecting players that aren't even involved). If nerfing swarming and insta-kill abilities is what will work, then fine I can live with that. I just hope the devs realize this will only work with a flat out nerf to the guilty abilities here. Making changes to zones or max-number of mobs pulled or tethering will only open up a whole new can of exploits. I realize they are working with severe (by todays standards) limitations but I wonder if any thought has been given to just replacing these skills with something else entirely.

As far as the 'free-AA' bit, personally what I would like to see is just a flat number of unspent AA awarded to the character upon reaching whatever level. If you can add a checkbox to the UI then I'm sure you could figure out how to do this? You are never going to find common ground with excluding certain AA's from the auto-grant approach. Sure, maybe the innate-stat AA's since these stats can be maxed without any AA's. But the tradeskill AA's??? Do you think it was intended that people would keep their chance to succeed low so they could gain more skill-ups by using the same mats over and over? I have a Master Artisan I worked on since 2000 and I personally took a few of those AA's so I could make platinum to buy more materials. If we are going to nerf one thing because of unintended use, then lets at least be consistent. If players are so concerned with these free AA's eating up their bonus, just get rid of the bonus. Seriously you are talking about granting 4kish AA's here... why do we still need the bonus? I'm not sure when the bonus went live because I was playing Progression at the time, but it seems to me that waiting until content released after said bonus was activated to gain AA's is just another case of unintended use.

You obviously do not know what you are talking about.

The proposed changes keep the difficulty the same for you. You can opt out and keep playing the same way your have played since you have returned.

You will still be able to point out those who are good EQ players vs The others in a drop of a hat. Mastering your playstyle is the difficulty of EQ. You set your accomplishments. You make your entertainment.

These changes are being made for the benifit of the game and not to burst people's egos. People get stuck in the AA grind. People want to advance when they return and not sit at level 80 for 4 months trying to get caught up with AAs.

What is really remarkable here is, that most of the posters here that say "if you threaten to quit, just quit" dont waste our time, we don't care, eq don't care....they aren't core players...they say so because they just want get get stuff for free, they have no respect for players that have played this game for 10+ years(14+ for me) and made the game alongside the developers, and THEY WILL MOVE ON TO OTHER GAMES THAT GIVES STUFF FOR FREE AS SOON AS EQ STOPS GIVING AWAY FREE STUFF.