[GU67] AA restriction removal.... what about the 280AA to level barrier?

A level 95 with 180 AA and t2 drinal gear, experienced player is more than plenty to most stuff. I'd rather have a 95 semi geared coercer with 120 AA than no coercer...

I suggested at the time that they add something that allowed people to inspect other players and see how many AA they have, as you can with levels.

Quoting Devaeryn here:

In the initial discussion of this new gate, they did bring up a lot of complaints they received that people were too low in AAs to handle the content. It's been a problem since long before Velious came out. I've experienced it firsthand. Raids and groups were difficult to deal with when some people didn't put in full effort into their characters. It's why they made the move to prestige abilities, so you know when you invite a 95, they have a specific skillset ready.

AAs does not maketh the player. That is one thing. Secondly it is not the developers job to handhold their players through group member selection - hence my hope they will remove the gate, and add an inspect Aa feature, giving people choice back.

To say that AAs don't make the player is like saying spells or items don't make them either. If that were the case we would all just be running around smacking things around and winning battles. The fact is AAs are a vital part of progression and content. The fact that such a gate exists proves that. For years, guilds have even required a certain amount of AAs for people to participate on raids. Try telling the big time guilds out there that AAs don't matter and I guarantee they'll die of laughter.

Do you read what you post? How many groups are going to run 95 content and after inspecting someone and finding they have 120 AA's and keep them in the group? At least with the current mechanic that is in place, if someone is 91, you know they have at least 280 of the 320 available AA's.

AA's are far more important than you think.

I would say get rid of the 280 limit. It was unnecessary initially when forced upon us all. On some of my characters, I spend only about 120 to 140 AAs that I find useful, unless there is a special feature I want on a particular character which I can only get with higher AAs. A majority of the AAs above 140 in my opinion are just fluff and a waste of my time even spending them. I don't use those features in my game play, which for me does not include raiding, or grouping with anyone outside my very small guild.

Does having 140 AAs used and not bothering with the other 180 AAs say my characters can't keep up with the raiders if invited to assist a raid. No. my character can fill their raid function to a point where I am getting bambasted with invites to groups and raids once someone realizes I know how to play my character that I really don't have the time or don't want to stay online playing 24 hours a day assisting in everyones elses agenda but mine. Getting time to play and develop with my own characters was why I quit raiding in the first place. Not that I don't enjoy an occassional raid or group, but hate being stuck in them all day long. A guardian may need 320 AAs plus a whole lot more to play the game, but they are a piece of crap in my opinion to my SKs or pallies. Healers and other characters I generally play don't need them to be highly effective. It really is more knowing your character and getting some spells and equipment and getting critical stats up.

So the 280 AAs required is a waste to me, and a useless restriction to getting content I am paying for. As far as I am concerned, if the Dev's want to put a restriction of 280 AAs for content I paid for, then give my one token per character to raise them to 280 AAs like the last paid expansion, and Let's all get out of the AAs race. Shift all AAs to the new manner of the 90 to 95 AAs and just give the AAs as you level at every 10 to 20 percent of a given level. Having this multi tier way of earning AAs is useless and a waste of programming resources.

Dye

I am sorry, but if u think as an SK or Pally you will be effective at ALL without your Shadow Class Line, ANYTHING in the Heroic Tree, or probably either of the endlines in the Class or Subclass trees... you have a lot to learn about grouping in the game that we call Everquest 2. this is about the same as saying that well that Armor stuff... i dont need it to group with people and tank the Group content, you should be ok with me not having several Armor slots... right?

No not having equipment slots filled or not having AA and Spent at lvl 95 is just not acceptable.

How about keep it civil? And perhaps reading what I post. I'd be happy to take a 120 AA geared 95 coercer than no coercer at all. I'd be happy to run with a dirge level 95 in hand me down alt stuff, or any other class to be honest.

You can take your raid requirements and research your apps yourself. Again, for the slow on uptake - AAs are not the be all and end all you seem to think they are. DC/Throne etc are not complicated, difficult zones. Advanced Solo are not difficult zones. EZAoA is one group able. Skyshrine is still run by people wanting mutes, AAs, questlines.

Remove 280AA limit, let us be the judge of when we are ready to be 95, and go to 95 zones.

edit. Just again to clarify - 95 is more important than 'at least 280 AAs and level 91' I don;t care if they are 91 with AAs, I'd rather not group with them till they are 95.

Well actually, as a crusader you WILL be effective with shadow line end abilities, a smattering in the crusader and SK and nothing in heroic. Because current heroic content is not hard. Nor is top 2 floors of ST contested. To compare not having all those AAs to not having armour slots filled is nonsensical.

And again - you are assuming that the person with lower AA is going to try and con their way into a group with you. They probably wouldn't - and in the event they did, you should be able to just inspect them and see hwo many AA they have, that would be a far better alternative.

I will say this change just makes me laugh. Especially after the big push to put the artificial barriers in the first place, and the complaints from all the people against it. Now removing the artificial barrier. Oh well, different people in charge now I guess. All in all the change does not make any diff to me as all my toons are maxed anyway. Guess if I make an alt it will be ok. Maybe it will draw some people back who got mad over them limiting it in the first place.

leave the 280 restriction in.

even if i could see how many AA's someone has, i don't want to be the guy that tells them to drop group because they don't have enough AA.

"Starting SS grind group"...you join and it's the leader who has 120 AA, and expects to tank. Nope, don't think I want to go there.

This is one of the best things they have done in a long time. It will make a huge impact in every aspect of the game. For the players that really enjoy taking their time exhausting content, they will finally be rewarded.

Regarding the 280 limit, I believe that has always been unnecessary. If you are that concerned about someone's stats and AA amount in whatever PUG you are running and someone is hiding their eq2U profile and unwilling to show it for a moment before an invite, then do not invite them.

• When making a group, you shouldn't have to ask members to unlock profiles so see if they have necessary abilities before joining a group.
• One shouldn't have to unlock their profile to get a group invite either.
• Currently if someone is 95, you KNOW they have at least 280 AA's.

Why this thread is even here, discussing something that is NOT in testing, has me stumped. Cy must have been bored.

Yes because a level 90 would be so effective against a level 102+ npc's . The reason there are level requirements is to make sure you won't be ineffective as a group / raid member against NPC's that are far above your characters abilities.

Most raid guilds I know of require 320 AA's for CoE content

tbh there is no reason to remove the 280 limit from getting past 90 just because they are removing the level restrictions on the amount you can spend per level.
pretty sure the 280 AA was made by people QQing about grouping with a 95 with 130 AA or something. 280, when spent right will give you each AA endline. it gives atleast something to suspect when you group with someone above it.

coming from someone that when he makes an alt, he just goes all the way and ends up at like 90 with 140ish AA. I don't group with until they atleast have half decent gear/320 AA anyway, cause I have respect for groups still (most times) and I know I wouldn't want a 95/150 in my group, so I won't be that person too. And than back when you could people even got mad when you rejected them like "sorry dude you don't have the gear/AA, not gonna invite you" they take it all raged. nope, atleast I can be sad in bad groups knowing they were bad with 280+ AA

Since silver level can't set their AA slider, the 280 restriction needs to be put in so that those players can get to the appropriate power required to tackle the content lvl 91+

And to the person who said they only spend 140 AA and the rest is fluff... you are the reason this change needs to stay in. Those unspent points make such a HUGE difference! I don't even know how you can say otherwise.

The AA spending level restrictions being removed is relevant to GU67, which is why I posed the question here, as I feel that one relates to the other in a fashion. I sincerely doubt any difference will be made, but I had hoped an intelligent discussion about the logic of the situation based on its original institution would crop up here.

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Not directly stated to anyone:
After the 280 AA req was put in, I purposefully got an alt to level 90 with only ~110 AAs spent. I then proceeded to get her to 280 AA, and found perverse amusement in the fact that the leveling system simply checks to see if you _have_ 280 AA, not if you've _spent_ 280 AA, before allowing you to gain xp. Eventually I was level 91 with ~284AA and ~110AA spent before I got bored and decided to finally spend them. No, I didn't torture any poor souls and group with them during that time, aside from my husband, who knew full well about that character. I actually held out just fine on my own in Withered Lands (which was current solo content at the time) before spending my AA, too.

There really was no point to that story, aside from it is related to the topic as well. It was simply my brief time of "sticking it to the man" over the silly restriction in my own strange fashion.

With the restrictions lifted to spend AA, I do think it will alter how individuals level. I personally love to grind AA first since it is so simple to gain AA at lower levels. I would love to see more people do this, testing and pushing their lower leveled characters. They would inadvertently learn to more on how to spend those AA's as they adventure leveled! At least in my opinion.