I apologize in advance if this has already been detailed on the forums as I can't find the specific answers I'm looking for. I'm also sorry for how long this ended up. I hope an experienced player can help in deciding the best way to alternate advance based on my situation. I have two accounts, one grandfathered Silver, and one FTP. If I understand correctly, a Silver account can only have a total of 1000 AAs*, and FTP only 250. *Just to be clear, this is total AA POINTS you can earn right?, not the amount of AA Abilities you can buy, as I think some abilities cost multiple AA points or at least ranks of each do; so some clarity on what that 1000 (silver) / 250 (ftp) limitation means would be helpful. I also hear there is a something you can purchase in the Marketplace to increase the number of AAs you can get. Is this still available and is there a limit on how many you can buy? My plan is to start acquiring AAs asap (balanced split with leveling to some degree) and ideally buy what I "need" most and/or is most efficient to get while leveling that may not be wasted when I sub for gold/all-access down the road. What I am most confused about is the Gold 'AA auto-grant' feature you get with the GOLD membership. When you select Auto-grant, does it INSTANTLY grant you a bunch of 'free' AAs? ..and is it based off your current level? What will likely happen is I'll do a one-month sub to gold/all-access, use my AA auto-grant, and then expect that when the month ends my characters will revert back to their old account limits and therefore be "maxed" based on all the auto-granted AAs. If I am understanding this correctly, then I should earn and use up all possible AAs up to my account CAP limit prior to temporary-subbing and auto-granting. right? Main considerations are: -When to temp-sub and auto-grant (assuming I'm only planning to do this once); biggest bang for my buck at 105+? or can I do it 51-60ish and still get every possible free AAs ?? -Will the "free" auto-granted AAs count against my "earned" AAs CAP, and if so I guess I need to make sure I get my full cap of available AAs redeemed Before temp-subbing/auto-granting or is this not a concern and those free AAs wont count against the AA cap/limit even after I UNsub back to FTP/Silver. -Lastly, if I do need to spend all my 'earned' AA points before subbing (or just in general need to while leveling), Ideally I don't want buy A lot of AAs that otherwise I would've gotten for free later. Is there anywhere that lists exactly which AAs you get for auto-granting so I can try to best utilize my earned AA cap points for other abilities? Thanks in advance for help on this seemingly overly confusing game mechanic!
OK will try to help you here. Yes you can buy "Alternate Ability Cap Increase" for $2.50 and it will raise the cap by 100 points. Its per character. That way is kinda expensive and I don't think it worth it. You will see why in a bit. Don't do it at level 51-60 that is too low if your only going to do it once. Most players are good playing and killing the mobs with the limits on Silver and FTP till about level 85. So that is when I would suggest you sub for one month. Once you have done that, log in and click the auto grant button. That character will get EVERY AA for EVERY LEVEL up to the level you do it at (except tradeskill ones and a few others - google search will show which). So if you do it at level 99 then you get them all up to 99. If you do it at level 61 then you would only get the AA up to level 61 at that time. Since you'll be subbed for a month you can use that extra time to earn unlimited AA for tradeskills etc. No matter when you do it if you can gain some more levels over the month you are paying as the auto grant will grant as you level up until it cannot grant anymore or you go F2P again. You will surpass the Silver and F2P limits and will be able to keep them all when you go back to non paying. And this is why people also wait for a bonus experience weekend, so they can slam the AA earing This is why I suggest not to use the one in marketplace - for $15 you pay for a month and get thousands of AA. If you pay $2.50 for only 100 of them then its going to take way more than $15. Now which to spend when. When you auto grant it will give you AA even if you bought that AA already. So don't waste the AA's your earning now. There are certain ones its good to get now, like the paladin gets his horse AA. But the rest I put towards a few basic and the rest tradeskill AA. I spend them all before an auto grant. Usually on tradeskill AA. Also a little tip. This is not confirmed but if you use a Krono when you sub for that month it MIGHT turn your F2P into Silver when it runs out.
That Krono to Silver glitch got resolved awhile ago. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/has-anyone.243785/#post-3582289 From what I understand Silver is a separate field or flag all together from subscribed vs not subscribed, at least two of my Lifetime Accounts still show the Silver account flag even though they likely shouldn’t go unsubscribes again. I’m guessing the game’s check logic is something like: If subscriber, then give Gold benefits If not check for Silver flag If Silver flag present, give Silver benefits If not give only Free to Play. But to digress, the Krono shouldn’t flag your account as Silver. People have tried and I haven’t heard of anyone recently getting it to work. Honestly, consider subbing if you’re having fun. I use to try avoiding paying but then it clicked that I should support the game and I realized the effort it took to not pay took the fun out of the game. In fact it lead to me grinding junk mobs more, so $15 a month gave me hours of my time back each month.
Thank you very much. I was looking at this all wrong or maybe just over thinking it! So it really doesn't matter that my F2P account only caps at 250 vs Silver's 1000, because after I sub/auto-grant, I'll have so many more AA than either cap would allow anyways, and buying those extra AA 'slots' would be redundant. My main takeaway is not to worry too much about what I spend my initial "earned" AA on before I sub, because it'll fill in all my blanks anyways and I will have essentially everything I need after I auto-grant, and when I let my sub lapse, both my Silver & FTP accounts will be on equal footing for their level to date. The only downside is that after I unsubscribe, I will not be able to earn Any new AAs until I resub. I haven't really looked into Tradeskills too much, but I've been taking it slow and will do my homework on those separately so that I can utilize as many earned AAs as needed into any tradeskill AAs that i might want before I unsub back to FTP. Are there any other non-autogranted AAs I should keep my eye out for then? It sounds like I'll get everything else (other than Tradeskills and some odd ones) except for the most recent expansion which would likely have a higher level requirement to unlock anyways. I'll probably go ahead and Sub a little earlier then, just to get a nice head start and also not be too far behind on learning my activated AA abilities. If I am playing enough to justify the subscription cost then I'll keep it for awhile, or I could always let it lapse (when my playtime lessens) and resub some months down the road when I have the time to grind up to a higher level plateau.
