General Question Regarding AA's

[ClickHere]

So I only have the core game right now.  I am picking up the EoF expansion after work. How does AA work? Is it like talents in WoW?  My assassin is level 15, will I get 5 AA's to begin with? Or does it work differently. Forgive my newbness, just came back to the game after 2 years.  SOE has done an amazing job so far btw.  This game should be relaunched.

[Crowe]

First recommendation: get the EoF box if at all possible! It will give you the previous expansions (Desert of Flames and Kingdom of the Sky) which the digital download will NOT! As for the answer to your question, here's a very recent post with better answers that I could whip up at the drop of a hat: <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=369927" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=369927</a>

[Gralthak]

<p>Specific answers:</p><p>AA is very similar to talents in WoW in function, but not in how you get them.  While in both EQ2 and WoW you get access to them at level 10 in WoW you're automatically given one a level while in EQ2 they have an entire seperate type of experience that is seperate from your adventure level.  You gain points, or don't gain, independantly of your class level.  You could be level 70 and not have any or level 15 and have 30.</p><p>No, you won't receive any AA when you register EoF.  You only start gaining Achievement Experience after the expansion is activated.  Since you're only level 15 this shouldn't be a problem, you honestly haven't missed out on anything major by only have five levels without.</p><p>General info reposted from another thread I replied to: </p><p>At level 10 you'll be able to gain 'Achievement Experience' by doing certain tasks.  Once you get enough experience you'll gain an Achievement point (often called an AA point, holdover term for a similar mechanic in EQ1) that you can use in a variety of ways.  Experience is gained primarily by doing the following: </p><ul><li>Killing named monsters of a level that yields experience for you </li><li>Completing non-repeatable quests </li><li>Exploring new areas </li><li>Completing collections </li><li>Finding certain valuable or rare items from mobs you kill.</li></ul><p>As with the first entry quests you complete must give you experience (or NOT be colored grey in your journal) to garner any Achievement experience.  Note however if you want to go back and get experience for things you might have leveled past you can find a lower level player and 'mentor' them, temporarily reducing your level to match theirs and making the quest/monster qualify again.</p><p> There are two basic 'trees' that each class has (assuming you have all the expansions) to spend the points in once you get them.  The first is a set that is shared by another class in your general type of character.  All classes in EQ2 are arranged into pairs, for example Berserkers and Guardians are both termed 'Warriors' while Templars and Inquisitors are both termed 'Priests'.   The two classes in each of these groupings share the first set of available Achievements they can invest in.  In general this first tree follows this pattern:</p><p> There is an ability that is your only choice for the first point you spend, generally this is some sort of generic helpful skill.  For Warriors, for example, is Bind Wound which allows you to heal yourself outside of combat for a decent amount every few minutes as well as giving you a damage bonus next time you use a combat art.  Then the tree diverges into a 'line' for each attribute.  The first power in each line simply increases a specific attribute by a set amount of points for each AA point you spend with stats that aren't as related to your class getting  bigger return on each points (warriors get 8 points intelligence per point but 4 points of strength) to improve the attraction of the less useful attributes.  The next ability in each line is generally a combat art style ability that up until this weeks update required a specific weapon, though some might still require a shield or ranged weapon.  These abilities are extremely varied from simple damage to elaborate abilities that counterattack, cause status effects, or buff you.  After that there are abilities that tend to just be numerical increases in some non-primary statistic such as critical hit chance, parry skill, mitigation, casting time, etc...  After all these there is a final ability in each line that is sort of the 'ultimate' for that series.  It requires a certain amount of points to have been spent in the other abilities in that line before it becomes available and tends to have a fairly dramatic effect.   To use Warriors again as an example the final ability in the strength line gives the warrior a greatly increased chance to do critical damage and improve damage when their health falls before 50%.</p><p> Separate from the shared set of abilities above there is also a class specific set of Achievements that belong solely to your individual class.  These tend to be a bit more mundane in that they improve combat arts or spells you already have in some way or another.  Maybe more damage, faster cool-down, or an increased chance to trigger.  These are arranged into a lattice with dependencies and grouped into several different types.  If you spend enough points in a certain type it opens up another 'ultimate' ability like discussed above.</p><p> At the maximum you can have 100 Achievement points, with up to fifty in each of the two trees I discussed above.  If spent correctly this is enough for a character to reach four of the ‘ultimate' abilities at the same time, however it is not necessary to do this.  If you choose you can spend your points in such a matter as to not reach any of those final abilities.  Some people feel spreading their points around more or investing more heavily into less lines might benefit them more than having more of the final abilities to choose from.  You'll ultimately have to decide for yourself based on your play style which Achievement abilities are the most useful for you.</p>

[Duskwo]

so if i dont have EoF at 30, and I do get it (I have the core game) I've missed a TON of AA exp from quests that I did? UGH. how stupid.

[Drokmed]

Yup. You can mentor to redo some of the lower level quests. 30 isn't too high, you can always roll another toon too...

[Duskwo]

looks like i'll have to. how utterly dumb and unfair to people.

[Sassinak]

You haven't missed out on those AA's forever.  You're just behind a little ibt. They can't really "catch you up" just by giving you AA's when you buy EoF.  Different people earn AA's at different rates.  It's not like WoW where you earn 1 point per level. AA's are designed to reward people who explore and quest.  Someone who doesn't do much questing will probably have no AA's at your level.  Someone who does questing exclusively might have 4-5 AA's at your level.  So you see, you're not really behind by a specific amount. The higher you get, the faster you earn AA's.  Trust me, you haven't missed much yet - just get the expansion before you get past level 20.

[TheSpin]

<cite>Duskwood wrote:</cite><blockquote>so if i dont have EoF at 30, and I do get it (I have the core game) I've missed a TON of AA exp from quests that I did? UGH. how stupid.</blockquote><p> Since EoF was released I leveled on character to 70 and worked really hard on getting AA experience the whole way by doing lots of questing and hunting for names.  I had all 100 AA at level 68 and I never even started some of the important quest lines like the claymore quest lines or the swords of destiny quest line.  Also I've gone on raids after I got 100 AA and seen 90% of the people on the raid get an AA for practically every named mob we kill and I almost feel cheated that I already have all these aa and don't get to enjoy earning new ones.</p><p> I am currently leveling yet another character to 70, he is 55 now, but I already have about 75 AA.  I actually tried not to earn as much AA experience this time and to focus more on just leveling him up, but I find questing is the best way to level when I can't get a group and when I do get a group we kill quite a few named mobs so I'm still earning tons of AA.</p><p> I have an old guardian from before AA was introduced and kept him around because he's a high level woodworker.  He's 38 and has no AA and I actually look forward to leveling him up while he's a little behind on AA.</p><p>There are sooo many ways to get AA in this game that it's never too late to start.  There are books you can buy in town that give quests that give aa, there are collection quests you can work on that give aa.  Raiding gives tons of AA.  On top of that you can always go back and mentor someone and do quests you skipped over previously for aa.</p>

[Gralthak]

<cite>Duskwood wrote:</cite><blockquote>looks like i'll have to. how utterly dumb and unfair to people.</blockquote><p> No more 'dumb and unfair' than not letting you into the areas for the expansion or doing quests related to it.  The AA for EoF and KoS (need each for access to the appropriate trees) are part of the expansion and are only available, just like almost all the rest of the content, to the people with the expansion.</p><p> You also haven't exactly missed out.  There are plenty of people that were close to or at the end game when the AA were released; if they can manage to get AA I'm sure that someone less than half their level can too.</p>

[Ixalmaris]

I don't see why it is possible to look which quests a character already has completed and add AA xp accordingly.

[Finora]

<cite>Duskwood wrote:</cite><blockquote>so if i dont have EoF at 30, and I do get it (I have the core game) I've missed a TON of AA exp from quests that I did? UGH. how stupid.</blockquote><p> I wouldn't worry about it. There is always the mentor system and don't forget, many people were max level (60) when achievement xp came out and most didn't have any trouble getting their aa's.</p><p>Unlike many other games you are not totally gimped if you don't have 'x' aa ability. Sure it'd often make your life easier, but you can certainly play just fine without any aa at all. </p>

[Gralthak]

<cite>Ixalmaris wrote:</cite><blockquote>I don't see why it is possible to look which quests a character already has completed and add AA xp accordingly. </blockquote><p> Because you only get AA for quests that you completed while they still yield experience and it simply lists what you completed, not when and what level.  And many of the older quests were changed to give AA where they originally didn't.</p><p> Seriously, AA experience isn't that hard to come by.  Turn off your combat experience and just do quests and kill named, mentor down and do the lower level stuff you missed, etc... You'll be up and running with a bunch of points before too long.</p>

[Duskwo]

Gralthak@Permafrost wrote: <blockquote><cite>Duskwood wrote:</cite><blockquote>looks like i'll have to. how utterly dumb and unfair to people.</blockquote><p> No more 'dumb and unfair' than not letting you into the areas for the expansion or doing quests related to it.  The AA for EoF and KoS (need each for access to the appropriate trees) are part of the expansion and are only available, just like almost all the rest of the content, to the people with the expansion.</p><p> You also haven't exactly missed out.  There are plenty of people that were close to or at the end game when the AA were released; if they can manage to get AA I'm sure that someone less than half their level can too.</p></blockquote> No. Actually it's more "dumb and unfair" because this affects my playing experience on a pvp server, as classes with AAs will be much stronger. I could care less about the extra areas, I could even care less about the AAs. But other people having an extra edge because they paid more money? tsk.