I am kind of flabbergasted by how worthless and unenjoyable to talent trees are in EQ2. As a Priest/Templar I see so little, or rather nothing to interest me in those trees... the heals depend on cures, and there's nothing to cure at low levels, the talents are not enticing in the least. I played WOW for many years, but I got too busy with real life, and didn't like a lot of the juvenile player base so jerk it's cool mentality that I left... I do wish the talent trees in EQ 2 were more fun and worthwhile though, this is very disappointing to me. JMB
I find the trees to be decent. The point of the trees in many areas is to boost and augment, not give whole new skills except in a few places. You need to keep in mind, those talent trees were originally designed for lvl 50 for the first tree, and higher levels for the others. So at level 10, you have access to many skills you either do not have or do not need.
Exactly, I see augmentations for spells I don't even have, that's pretty silly. I think WOW did a much better job in this respect... low level talents for lowbies, makes the game more interesting and fun I think. Sorry, just my two cents, there's no reason to make something that's practically worthless for low level players, why do it? It's not really making the most of what you can do.
Again, I disagree. Without those AA, a low level character will be hard pressed to pick up certain stats such as crit chance, multi attack, block chance, etc. The AA selections are pretty good for a low level character. You will have skills to augment that you dont have yet, sure. But again, the talent trees came out like 2 or 3 years after the game launched. WoW may have launched with trees(I dont know, never played) so they would be tailored to low level skills.
Blizzard actually has updated their trees many times over the years so they really polished them to be useful at all levels, I am not really getting that feeling as a healer with EQ 2, but I could be wrong, and this is just a false first impression caused by my own sense of being overwhelmed by so much information at once and no real idea what to do since there's so many talents to do with spells I don't even have which just seems stupid.
There's two sides to this. The trees rarely get reviewed and changed so they are stuck in the past. But, the low level content doesn't really require AAs so it's a bonus. The first tree is useful at lower levels as said above, you can get a bit of crit chance or multiattack and a decent ability usually after 22 points. The second tree always comes second in my mind, and I only improve on the abilities I have for that level, otherwise what's the point? These two trees could do with an overhaul though. At max level the class tree special abilities (the ones where you can pick one every 30 points I think), are pretty outdated and most classes seem to have 2-3 that are pretty useless now, like 8 multiattack for a ranger.
I know EQ2 is fairly old in terms of MMOs, 2004, 9 years, that's pushin the point where developers just don't care anymore, why put the resources and money to such an old game with new games taking away members all the time, even WOW is damn old now, came out around the same time... I don't even know what new games people are playing these days, I got EQ 2 because my girlfriend plays and I wanted to play with her. I wonder if it's time to find something new.
Why do you need all those AAs at low levels? Level 1-80 in EQ2 is all pretty much soloable, whether you spend all those AAs or not. You want them to further restrict how many AAs and which AA lines you can spend at lower levels for what purpose? To avoid player confusion? In the lower levels, you're already incredibly powerful, probably a factor of 10 times more powerful than was originally intended in that level range based on the original enemy difficulty, gear/equipment, and the fact that AAs weren't even introduced until 2 years into the game.
Wow I just ran into another horrible feature in EQ 2 compared to WOW... the broker/auction house... Are there no visible categories to just open the broker to see whats what without having to know what to search for? Just a horrible system from what i can tell.
As Feldon said, AA were not introduced until I believe Kingdom of Sky with the Sub-Class AA tree. Were it to keep you on the "original" difficulty well, that's not possible some Low-Level gear has been updated; some has not. The closest to launch you could be without reverting pre-GU 13 would be to not spend a single AA until you are lvl 50. At this point (level 50) you would have all spells associated with AA or darn near all of them.
Relax, just get used to it, you don´t have to know what you are searching, if you know what you are searching you can shrink the results by using the filters, which works great (mostly). Don´t get me wrong, but there is a reason why WoW does attract younger ones ^^ That´s maybe the reason they not here at eq2, so there are huge diffrences betweeen thos, which is great
As Feldon said though there are Custom UI mods for that problem. ProfitUI: Well made and still maintained a little slow on updates sometimes. http://www.eq2interface.com/downloads/info4633-ProfitUIUpdater.html DrumUI: Maintained by an active raider and works as well as Profit from what I am told. http://www.eq2interface.com/downloads/info4961-v1.39e.html I use Profit myself. I have not converted over yet, not sure if I will.
btw. don´t know if its profit ui feature, but when ingame you allways can choose between those uis oO simply /loadui A window will pop up where you can choose which ui you want to play right now (have drums and profit, but sometimes you need the default, at least for experementation ^^)
Pretty much anything you find in the first tree (for clerics it'd be listed as cleric) can be useful at any level. For example, as a low level soloing templar, my alt rather likes having the increased auto attack damage and crits from the stamina line. The crits will also help when I group for getting critial heals. Just glancing at the tree I can see a bunch more things I'd like to have the aa to spend on. The second tree, the class tree (for you Templar) has some things that are pretty useful at a low level. As for low levels having nothing to cure... I don't know what you've been fighting but I've had to cure detriments from the level 4-5 goblins in Greater Faydark, so the cure stuff can be useful at lower levels. As for making something practically useless for low level players... I'd say it's much more dangerous for a game to make something practically useless for higher level players. At least the lower level players have something to look forward to getting. If you don't think something is useful to you at your level, don't spend points on it. As for the broker, even if you have default all you have to do to find something is hit the search button, then pick out your search catagories. It really sounds like you are suffering more from a bit of game shock than anything else. EQ2 is different from WoW & unlike 90% of all the other games out there doesn't have a WoW clone UI & pretty much a clone of how their talents work. The AA's in the first tree could probably do with another look for some classes, though they did that fairly recently and to be honest I'm sick of them playing with the AA trees.
EQ2 was my first MMO. I started shortly after launch and really enjoyed the game. I left to play WoW with some RL friends. Like most people I didn't last much more than a few years before I couldn't take dealing with the kids any longer (even if some of those "kids" are physically adults). I tried out several other MMO's before returning to EQ2. I can understand your point of view about first glaces at the AA choices. With WoW there was a "right" way to spec for each class and role. However you have a lot more choices here about how you want to build your character. There isn't a set spec that is required for you to qualify as a healer or tank. Without a doubt there are some AA choices that will make those roles easier. I have limited experience with a Templar so I am not to give you any advice on where I would recommend spending you AA's. But like mentioned above, there are usually many useful stats that can be gained in the first tree that will make leveling up easier. As for cures, I use a Templar Merc for the cures even in low levels. (I know the Inq is better at them, but I like my friends to have less hair... )
