The Great Nerf of '06! Did the AA's make us too powerful?

[Krontak]

<DIV>I'm starting to think this as of lately and really hadn't seen it discussed.  They gave just about every class some NICE skills with AA's they released but nothing to balance out NPC combat to counter our increased combat ablilities. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I suppose with a limited beta testing group they really couldn't have forseen or measured just how much of an inbalance they introduced with AA's.  I'm starting to think maybe this was there way to counter it.  Just a thought.</DIV>

[Fildarum]

I personally found all of the AAs I've looked at to be underpowered and lacking creativity.  Just a wow clone with no real substance.  Over powerful would be more like eq1 AAs.

[Jooneau]

As a Troubador, no, my AA's did not make me more powerful. I'm curious what class you play to have come up with the notion that your AA's made a significant difference in your ability to defeat NPC's in combat.

[Lord Montague]

Balancing NPC's to adjust to more powerful characters due to AA's is what they did in EQ1, and there were consequences for that.  Anyone who played EQ1 should know the end result of that.  I for one would rather they NOT repeat that here.

[Yindari]

Yes please do not repeat that, they nerfed my chanter so bad I was basicly a vending bot for buffs, the charm nerf drove me away from EQ1 I hope they don't do the same to me in EQ2, I have played a Conjurer from launch thinking I would be safe as long as I didn't play a chanter again. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Jooneau]

For what it's worth, WoW Talents (the equivalent of EQ AA's and EQ2 AP's) make a significant difference in gameplay to the point where WoW players constantly debate the effectiveness of "specs," e.g., specing a Warrior as Fury, Arms, or Protection can make a significant difference in how you play as a Warrior and what sort of equipment and stats you are interested in.So characterizing EQ2 AP's as a WoW clone isn't really fair... to WoW. EQ2 AP's in general don't make much of a difference, at least for my Troubador. I would be interested in reading what folks playing other classes have to say about how AP's affect their characters.

[Gungo]

<DIV>I was goign to do a post on how i woudl of setup aa's but there is no way i can do it balanced and have it compeltely unique to each class. W/o it feeling generic. Saying that i think AA's should of been genric eq1 type aa's before they started addign in the crazy abiliy ones.</DIV> <DIV>stuff like +stats, + atk, + mitigatio< + 0.5% heal crit, +0.5% melee  crit. with a linear progression with several paths like eq2's. thats all they can do adding in final abilites and new abilites or high %s would eventually be unbalancing.</DIV>

[Pyrrhon]

<div><blockquote><hr>Jooneau wrote:For what it's worth, WoW Talents (the equivalent of EQ AA's and EQ2 AP's) make a significant difference in gameplay to the point where WoW players constantly debate the effectiveness of "specs," e.g., specing a Warrior as Fury, Arms, or Protection can make a significant difference in how you play as a Warrior and what sort of equipment and stats you are interested in.So characterizing EQ2 AP's as a WoW clone isn't really fair... to WoW. EQ2 AP's in general don't make much of a difference, at least for my Troubador. I would be interested in reading what folks playing other classes have to say about how AP's affect their characters.<hr></blockquote>I would LOVE an advancement system like Warcraft's Talents. There is no shame in using someone else's really good idea. Far worse is to be too prideful to employ a good idea simply because someone else thought of it.Let's face it: in the game industry, as elsewhere, there is very little new under the sun. People borrow and build upon other people's ideas <i>all the time</i>. Being surreptitious about it doesn't make someone any more original.</div>

[Ishbu]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Lord Montague wrote:<BR> Balancing NPC's to adjust to more powerful characters due to AA's is what they did in EQ1, and there were consequences for that.  Anyone who played EQ1 should know the end result of that.  I for one would rather they NOT repeat that here.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>That was considerably different since players could amass hundreds of aa's and the aa's had very significant upgrades for the players.  In this game, the aa's are a lot more fluff then they were in eq1.  </P> <P>It really would be too hard to make level 70+ mobs (so in this case raid mobs and anything in a future expansion) be 5% harder to account for players having an over 5% increase due to aa's.  It would not be balancing encounters agaist aa's like they had to do for the warrior aa's in eq1.  It would just be a generic slight increase to counterbalance the slight increase in power that all classes receive. </P> <P>Another reason to justify this increase is that ALL players will have aa's, where as in in eq1 you either gained levles or AA's, but not really both.  Here you gain aa's while you level up, a great many truthfully and with them capped at 50 max it isnt going to create the disparity between the have's and the have nots as eq1 did since everyone will have, becaue basically they are forced into it <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P>

[Lord Montague]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ishboozor wrote:<BR> <P>Another reason to justify this increase is that ALL players will have aa's, where as in in eq1 you either gained levles or AA's, but not really both.  Here you gain aa's while you level up, a great many truthfully and with them capped at 50 max it isnt going to create the disparity between the have's and the have nots as eq1 did since everyone will have, becaue basically they are forced into it <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>The trouble is that this paragraph has a lot of assumptions.  It is possible, and all entirely too likely actually, to level up and not gain Achievements.  Don't have KoS?  No Achievements.  Do a lot of straight XP grinding?  No Achievements...until you hit 70 of course.  Yeah, it's a good thing that it doesn't take as much to get them, but people can just as well do without them.  Personally, I don't mind having them, but I won't be obsessing over what I do or do not have because it's just not fun to me.

[Ishbu]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Lord Montague wrote:<BR> <BR>The trouble is that this paragraph has a lot of assumptions.  It is possible, and all entirely too likely actually, to level up and not gain Achievements.  Don't have KoS?  No Achievements.  Do a lot of straight XP grinding?  No Achievements...until you hit 70 of course.  Yeah, it's a good thing that it doesn't take as much to get them, but people can just as well do without them.  Personally, I don't mind having them, but I won't be obsessing over what I do or do not have because it's just not fun to me.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>If you dont have KoS you cannot level up into the new encounters anyways, so that is a null issue.  Even if you straight exp grind, you will gain 5-10 aa per tier.  Trust me, I went from 60-70 in under 5 days, but I still had 17 aa's by the time I was done.

[Pyrrhon]

<div><blockquote><hr>Ishboozor wrote:<div></div> <blockquote> <hr> Lord Montague wrote: <div></div>The trouble is that this paragraph has a lot of assumptions.  It is possible, and all entirely too likely actually, to level up and not gain Achievements.  Don't have KoS?  No Achievements.  Do a lot of straight XP grinding?  No Achievements...until you hit 70 of course.  Yeah, it's a good thing that it doesn't take as much to get them, but people can just as well do without them.  Personally, I don't mind having them, but I won't be obsessing over what I do or do not have because it's just not fun to me. <hr> </blockquote>If you dont have KoS you cannot level up into the new encounters anyways, so that is a null issue.  <font color="#ffff00">Even if you straight exp grind, you will gain 5-10 aa per tier.</font>  Trust me, I went from 60-70 in under 5 days, but I still had 17 aa's by the time I was done.<hr></blockquote>Sorry, I can't buy that. I went from 20 to 44 doing as many blue quests as I could, mentoring for turn-ins, exploring higher level zones, really trying to maximize my AP gain. And at 44, I have 11 APs. Now, I'm not saying it couldn't have been done better, but I really did focus on earning AXP whenever possible, and only made roughly 4 AP per tier. There's no way straight grinding could produce up to 10 AP (in the lower tiers, at least, which is all I have experience with).</div>

[Ishbu]

Like I said I did aboslutely nothing but grind regular xp and got 17aa's at the top tier.  The higher you go the more you should get so it would work out to 5-10 per tier.

[Despak]

Hmm I must doing something different to you then Pyrrhonic.My Dirge at 68 has 30+ AP's (not played him for a bit so forgotten exactly) and my Monk at 57 now has 29 AP's.Just grinding and doing lots of quests (mostly solo stuff too).

[StealthM0]

<DIV>Take this as a lesson (OPs thread title). When you dont THOROUGHLY beta test something it is going to wreak havoc in your engine.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thats the problem right there. Almost nothing gets tested at SoE before its pushed out the door. I mean really tested. A minority of the clients logging into test for 4 weeks is NOT a thorough test. And thats where SoE is screwing up. There are bugs in game now that have BEEN there since release. 18 months now, still not addressed. Meanwhile more and more crap (expansions/adventure packs) are being pushed out. Also not tested as thoroughly as they should be.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Wake UP!!!! Quality Assurance is a very necessary thing. Especially in a company like SoE. Your products as they are right now are in violation of a FEW clauses of the consumer protection act (no reimbursements/refunds? better read the consumer protection act first noobs (yes I am calling SoE employees especially the lawyers who wrote the clauses noobs).</DIV>

[JoarAddam]

<DIV>Nobody expected the crazy Achievement selections that some people made.  Crusaders doing 1k dps on raids through crits and tricky gear switches got ther spell critical percentage nerfed...  no big deal, really, but with Shadowknights carrying 2 hammers 2 swords 2 totems, it does start to fill up bags</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Nobody is going to say that they're overpowered once they really get into Halls of seeing...  ambushes around every corner, and shadowy presences that one shot tanks.  Then you've got the Lyceum of Abhorrence with dumbfire pets that AOE taunt and heal their owner on death...   </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>No, the mobs don't need a boost.   I love LOVE the challenges that these puzzles provide, and hope to see more of the same in future expansions.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>as far as achievements making lowbies more powerful, so what?  Let them get to 70 quickly so they're ready to buy the next expansion.  It almost seems like that's what harclaves, with it's super XP at the time was about.  getting folks ground up quickly in time for desert.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I don't get to these boards near enough anymore...  I'm glad, in a way.  Nothing i really ever read here changed my play style, but it sure got me riled up and anxious to raid...</DIV>