Interview with Lead Designer Akil “Lyndro” Hooper on Game Update 63: SKYSHRINE

Alenna@Guk wrote:

See...here's the funny thing. If you DO actually play the game...like explore, do the quests, fight the mobs, do the dungeons, etc...you end up with a very nice amount of AA. The problem is people don't want to "play" the game AND they don't want to grind, which ends up meaning we have happen what we did; people get a handout.

Raknid wrote:

If you run every dungeon/zone/kill every named in game you wouldn't get to 70aa with out repition, ie grind. Add to that every non repeatable quest that doesn't have a prerequisite or involve raiding, you might get to 150aa. That to me is "playing the game"
You have to face it that AA was invented with the idea that you would be running 'shard' zones every day for years to get to cap. And if you didn't have a group to do that then u were just out of luck. That puts a LOT of people behind the 8 ball.

Alenna@Guk wrote:

10 at 90/320... vet bonus 200%. The SAME vet bonus available to everyone who plays enough to have 10 90's.

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

simply not true.. I have 8 chars at level 70. They all have soloed to 70 and they all have about 200aa. I've locked them temporarily because I have all the quests in Barren Sky and Bonemire to do still. It is VERY rare for me to level past 50 with less than 150aa. None of them 'grind' as you'd call it. I have way too many alts to be running zones multiple times on each one.
Hint... during the double exp weekend I ran my 70 dirge through Halls of Fate, Achedasiem, Crypt of Valdoon, Den and Blackscale and maybe the Nest of Great Egg. To do those zones one time each took about 3 hours. She got 43aa doing just that.
8 of my 10 90's have never quested at all in Moors. In fact my last char to hit 90 skipped the entire RoK/SF questlines and still hit 90/320 in 3 days /played SOLO. He solo quested through the clould mount questline in KoS then did his Reet Faction in Seb, then did his epic weapon quest. Then he went straight to Great Divide. He's never been to Eastern Wastes. I'm waiting for the aa cap to go up first.

If you create a new toon it is easy to get AA, but if you have old toons it is impossible to get enough AAs from normal progression.

Lateana@The Bazaar wrote:

If you have characters created pre-AA, you've had 6 years to gain them.
6.
Years.
6 YEARS of normal gameplay is clearly enough. No grinding required. Maybe chronomenter and run old content at times...

Lateana@The Bazaar wrote:

Not true.
I have a character created on day one. I do not ever grind with her. There is A LOT of content I haven't done with her (and am perpetually surprised by seeing white stars on her). I have never raided with her and have "missed" a lot of heroic content with her since it's usually been a different character I've been primarily playing the adventure game with from KoS on. I've did a considerable number of quests with her pre-AA. Yet, even with only one other adventure 90 on that account, Rijacki will be at 280+ AA when GU63 launches. I still have many of her vet reward XP potions 'cause I routinely forget to use them *laugh* Oh and she hasn't finished Epic Repercussions just 'cause I hadn't gotten around to working on it. She's gotten past the library step. I should get that done.
I have recently (halfway through last Saturday) been interested in getting my dirge on the other account advanced. I had pettered off leveling her mid 80s (last time she has been 'capped' was when 80 was the max). She was created before KoS launched and was my main adventure character from then until shortly before RoK launched (when my adventure main changed to my current adventure main, my coercer). She is my sole 90 adventurer on that account. I got 2 AA on her last night (at most, a 25% potion running) in the hour I played her last night, just doing DoV solo quests. I might miss the 280 mark on her, but not by to far and definately not the "impossible" some claim. She's at 216 or 217 now, definately a lot more than "oh my ghods, you can't get to more than 100 AA without doing insane grinds". Before Saturday, the last time I did heroic content with her was.. umm.. EoF. She doesn't even have her epic, the first one, not the raid one. I should work on that tonight. *laugh*

Piestro wrote:

(( Adding two new levels to adventuring and crafting?
Good.
Making the adventuring levels take more time than we are used to in order to complete?
Good. This is pleasing to adventuring players, because adventurers don't want it all over in a flash, they want to feel they earned it with putting the effort in. Great stuff.
Making the crafting levels also take more time than we are used to in order to complete?
No? Why not? This is just the same. Crafters want that feeling too. We don't want to just press a button and ding 92! Adventurers who have no interest in crafting will want crafting to be trivialized, but crafters do not.
Please make the crafting levels take more time as well! Same logic as for adventurers. ))

Well someone who levels to 90 without ever getting AA's (or just very few) and then suddenly finds out that they're stuck at 90 until they have 280 AA will feel frustrated. Worse, their zone options at level 90 are restricted to level 90 content. It might get boring staying in the same zones all the time! It might feel grindy! Even if they mentor and go to lower level content to stop from feeling bored, they might be discouraged when they discover that none of the loot is useful to them.
This is one of the reasons I always levelled up slowly in eq1 ... to get aa and to use more of the content to stop from being bored. If you stop at X 5 different times then you will have more zone choices than if you only do it once.
Another reason to do that is you'll be more prepared for encounters and not be underequipped or underdeveloped. This leads to less frustration because you will experience less wipes, overall. It's a way to control things.
A level 90 isn't going to want a level 20 in the group, basically. That's why AA's matter.
AA's and levels are the same thing. They're a progression measurement.
Should just think of AA's as mini-levels.