Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

Reading comprehension please.. I said he only gets satisfaction from the game by being able to compare himself to others.

Here's an idea... if you are going to go through with this AA auto-grant then refund all players all the AA's they have gotten and let them re-spend them after the auto-grant.

I disagree with 4k aa and raising the cap, raise the cap to 7k sure, but not after giving people 4k free aa. How much is enough, really, what next?

Ok so I have a sk as a main and if this nerf is going to be more negative than a positive an that is pretty much what it seems like it will be, I will quit. Also I have a ranger whom I made just for buffs/headshot so when nerfing headshot he will become useless an no longer needed thus being forgotten. I have 6 accounts and soe is about to nerf for the last time imo. I will quit for good if this crazy idea for a "fix" goes through. Wake up sony and stop fixing that's not broke! I'll be 90$ richer every month not to mention countless amounts in SC throughout the year. Oh well... Good Job SOE.. (NOT!!)

I would love this if they did old zones for these missions. Join the mission to kill mobs in Sol B. You say ready and you join an existing group going or start your own with mercs. As people come and go mercs take there place to keep the dungeon flow going. To make sure people are not afk through they need to heal or damage needs to be made to get credit for the quest. If it is made lootable make it disapear on finishing the mission.

Mobs offer exp and the reward is AAs

This also has a huge negative impact, because it will put a lot of players at max aa and a lot of players actually do enjoy killing and grinding in zones that they like, and they will not have nearly as much to do or to achieve in the game anymore, please dont tell me you still have to level your character, that type of thinking makes me cringe.

could care less if everyone has 4000AA for free. if that means i don't have to see lvl 100 toons with less than 1000AA i could care less.

give anyone that actually starting this game a freaking chance at catching up to the rest of the people in the game.

i guess people are whining because they earned 4001 AA and wont get nothing from this. Well i have earned over 13kAA and i wont get jack either.

but hey i can have some fun with my alts again!

but seriously if your going to quit then give me your stuff. I mean man up if your really going to quit. At a very minimum delete all your characters and quit for sure. dont sit around here saying your gona quit and not actually go through with it.

Why does it make you cringe?

Don't include innate Agility, charisma, dexterity, intelligence, see invis, stamina, strength, and Wisdom. Also auto granted AA shouldn't count as AA spent since the player is not spending them. also players who do have AA spent already that are apart of the auto granted AA list should be reimbured the AA they did earn to spen elsewhere

Because it is not difficult, by any means, to level a character with mercs and /claim potions galore, etc. This is not supposed to be WoW where you hit a certain level and are immediately rewarded points and abilities the instant that you ding! And if you think it should be, that is where we will always disagree. We accept that the game has changed, and we accept your opinions, but you have to accept ours as well.

No insult intended, but how is it you managed to reach level 91 without at least acquiring the basic AA's to improve your pet? At level 91 with even 1 to 2k AA's you should be able to plow through level 70 mobs. May I respectfully suggest that you try to make the acquaintance of some higher level Magicians and chat with them about ways in which to improve your character.

I "guess" you didnt read any of the valid arguements brought up by the opposition in the 150 pages already on the subject?

I say line all dps up regardless of class spell or ability if your lvl 100 your dps is 50k regardless of gear an weaps all class all spells all disc it all will only equal 50k dps, drop 1k off for every lvl under 100 down to lvl 70, then every body be happy happy no more complaints no more well they do more damage than i do everyone can go do their thing an in groups everyone can kick some arses sounds win win ta me

Hello, I currently play a Shadow Knight at level 100 and Raid weekly. I have a proposal of allowing swarming to take place only in instance zones. Before I go on, I would like to provide a few thoughts.

All classes can swarm to some degree, whether you are a shadow knight pulling 100 light blue xp mobs, or a druid pulling 100 grey cons in an old zone to farm trade skill items. To achieve this goal takes a good amount of time and work...but hacking and slash through trivial content is quite thrilling! No matter what class we play, we have all jumped into an old dungeon, and slaughtered countless hordes of grey cons. Our reason was for nothing more then the thrill of the hunt and possibly some nostalgia. The same is to be sad for swarming, it really creates this feeling of greatness for all the hard work that you put into your character.

So, I ask myself when did this play style become disruptive? In a personal experience, I was able to pulling over 100+ creatures and while doing so the zone would lag to a point where i was forced to stop pulling. It took an incredible amount of time for the pile to reach me, but in the end i killed every single one. Instead of dealing with that lag, I decided to pull two trains of 50 and that created a much better experience for myself and the zone. Player standards plays a big factor in the disruption that has been caused by swarming and that is a bear that most likely will always be a problem.

I agree that there needs to be some changes to keep the servers healthy but also to help prevent disruptive egos from gobbling up all the XP mobs in the best XP spots. Your compromise is to completely remove all forms of swarming to a fraction of what they used to be. Does this solve the lag issue? Does this open up the best xp spots for more players? Probably, but it also negatively impacts 50% of the player population too. The other 50% are looking possitive due to the lag, zone crashes, and over all grief from high end players swarming.

My proposal is to allow swarming to function only instance zones, just as levitate does not work in "The Deep", we could flag these abilities to only function at full power in "Instanced content" . In non-instanced content set reduced effects and caps on abilities.

As a programmer myself I realize this would take a bit of work to adjust these abilities, but we are already deep in that rabbit hole now.

Here are a few reasons why this would solve the major problems.

Less lag: Most all instance zones are much smaller than OPEN zones. The pulls would be limited and therefore less taxing on the server. If an instance shows problematic pulling potential flag this zone NOT swarm-able.

No more trains: that is right no more trains on random exp groups and players that happen to cross path.

Doesn't affect raids much: Almost all raiding content is instance based now. With this simple system we could continue the same as always.

Players are happy: We have played your game for YEARS and have grown found of slashing through trivial content with these abilities! We like being gods once in awhile!

The casual Player: Many of us have returned to the game husbands, wives, and parents. The amount of time we have to play is limited. Not to mention the amount of time we spent building our characters because swarming is so much fun. These forms of soloing allowed many of us to still enjoy the game and progress our characters at a reasonable rate.

Sure this doesn't make everyone 100% happy but it is a very fair compromise that doesn't change the game so much. There is tons of instanced content that can be played in and this will free up all the open zones for great xp grouping. Thanks a lot for reading and I hope some of you will add to this topic with more great ideas.

you don't have to opt into it. if you want to kill in whatever empty zone for grinding AA you can have at it. but others would like a more accelerate path to somewhat current everquest.

I would just like to mention for myself that I have absolutely zero intentions as a ranger of sitting back and bowing waiting for these two procs a minute to happen. It took us a long time to get a viable melee alternative to Bullseye and I would just hated it to be forced back into that role in either a raid or group setting. Just my opinion.

*and yes I know Bullseye fully supported is better than Bosquestalker in what, sub 3:30 fights? But I rarely have that problem

Unbelievable that people would support this in everquest.

So? In most instances it's not going to kill the mob, at best it gives rangers, zerkers and rogues a boost, especially in the group game where they need it.

So you are different because why? You feel entitled because you ground out your experience the old fashioned way, right? I would just like you all to consider another issue that has not been directly addressed here or is just being ignored.....expansions in general. A player is level 64, has maybe 200aa's, and is grinding out old school (a grind that everyone has always complained is slow). SOE releases new expansions with new level caps, aa's, content, super cool new gear to make a person more powerful, and best of all the added features. While all of the stuff they give us is pretty sweet, it offers nothing for the lower level player I mentioned. This player buys the new expansion in hopes of hitting some of the content before before it is obsolete with yet another expansion, or at the very least be able to take advantage of the added features (extra slots, /claim goodies, /baz benefits, ...etc).

You see, this player buys the new expansion and may never get to see new content at all, never wear the gear, never experience the enriched lore, and this can have a real impact on the player's experience. The changes being proposed by the auto-grant aa system will take some of the drag out of this player's experience and add incentive for him/her to drive for that end content and take full advantage of the expansion that he purchased on the gold account that he payed for. I truly believe this is a right move to add more value to the game for everyone who plays and will play. Every player in everquest has the ability to be great if they choose to be regardless of when they started playing. Judge a player on their skill and as the kind of person the player chooses to be. The elitist attitude that is coming off of some here is the same sickening attitude that has become the norm in the game. The elitist self absorbed "Veterans" that are complaining about entitlement are the only ones that are acting ENTITLED!

Lets focus on the fun in the game and what we can do to help our fellow players become their best and stop knocking them down. We all have the potential to be the best if we are all having fun.

That doesn't make sense, what exactly do you mean accept yours? Didn't Piestro already say that he realizes that some people are not going to be happy about it but that was the nature of any big change. Next..