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

[Dethdlr]

Eschia@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I am also ashamed at the members of the EQ2 community who think barring your fellow players from leveling to max level is acceptable...

Nobody is barring you from anything other than yourself.  You are choosing to not gain AAs.  That's your choice.  That means you are also choosing to not level up to 92.

Eschia@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Do any of you even know what AA stands for? "Alternate Advancement". If it becomes a requirement to have them (even with solo content), then lets just remove the word "alternate" from the title completely.

That one gets thrown around a lot actually.  And it's meaning is dependent on your interpretation.  This is from the press release for Kingdom of Sky that came out back in 2006 and introduced what is now called Alternate Advancement:

All-new Achievement system to further enhance and specialize your character's abilities

Prior to AAs, when a character leveled up, they got the exact same skills, spells/combat arts, etc as every other character of the same class and level.  There wasn't anything you could do to set yourself apart except the gear you put on.  That changed with the introduction of AAs.  Now players could "enhance" and "specialize" their character's abilities.  That had alternatives in how to advance their characters instead of just getting the exact same things every other character of that class and level got.  You could spec yourself for group play, or, as an alternative, spec yourself for solo or raid play.

The problem is, some people read the word "Alternate" and took it to mean "Optional".  For some things, yes, it's optional.  If you have no intention of grouping with anyone, it's optional.  If you only intend on grouping with people who are going to carry you through the zone because you aren't powerful enough to pull your own weight, it's optional.  But if you intend on joining pick up groups and advertising yourself as a level 92 character, it's not optional.

Eschia@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Not everybody is a min/maxer. Some of us want to have fun, and don't care about how high we get a skill or point pool. We want our veteran bonus, we want to be accepted in groups, and we want to enjoy the game the way it has always been. And lets face it we all know that when 92 is the cap, nobody will want to group with anyone lower. That's just how a lot of people roll these days.

And here we get to the REAL crux of the matter.  And what I believe to be the hidden (although not very well) reason behind most people complaining about this.  You want to be level to 92 so that people will accept you in a group. That's always been the only requirement before, right?  So why should it change now?  Because you're not pulling your weight, that's why.  That's pretty much what Lyndro said in his post.  When you accept a level 90 tank into your group, you don't know if you're getting one with 65 AAs or 317 AAs.  "content for a level 90 with few AAs is pretty different than content for a level 90 with a whole lot of them."  So level isn't enough to tell you what you need to know about a character anymore.  That's why you see so many people in channels looking for "no fail" players and groups.  Why do you think they ask for things like that?  Because they got too many people in a group too many times with too few AAs, blew their lockout timer on a zone and couldn't complete it even though they had the right group makeup at the right level for the zone.  But they were weak characters that didn't have the AAs needed to do the zone.  This has been a problem for quite a while.  Level 90 doesn't tell you what you need to know.

So they're working to fix that.  They want level 92 to mean you have at least 280 AAs so you have access to your end line heroic abilities and actually have a chance to pull your own weight in a group.  That way, in channels, people won't have to say "Zone X group needs level 92 tank with 280+ AAs".  All they will need to say is "Zone X group needs level 92 tank".

Eschia@Antonia Bayle wrote:

We want our veteran bonus, we want to be accepted in groups, and we want to enjoy the game the way it has always been. And lets face it we all know that when 92 is the cap, nobody will want to group with anyone lower. That's just how a lot of people roll these days. Some of you might be fine with pointless grinding of the same content over and over and over just to get a few numbers, but the rest of us would rather just have fun, and we shouldn't be denied level 91 just because we don't want to boringly grind AAs.

That's exactly how the people who are FOR this change feel as well.  We just want to have fun and enjoy the game.  But when you get into a group that should be able to do a zone but keep dying over and over again or it taking forever to kill things, it's not fun.  It's not fun at all.  And that's what happens when people bring their characters who are perfectly fine for solo content but have hardly any AAs into a heroic group zone.  It drags down the group.  Even if people aren't dying, the zone goes slower than it needs to because you're basically doing a 6 man zone with 5 1/2 people or less (depending on how many under powered characters you brought).  It's not fun at all.  And that's what you would like to continue to inflict on the rest of your fellow players? 

Kudos to Lyndro and SOE for finally putting something in place to solve the huge gap between low AA characters and high AA characters.

[Stuez]

Eschia@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I have to agree with Cloudrat. I am also ashamed at the members of the EQ2 community who think barring your fellow players from leveling to max level is acceptable

Who is banning you from leveling?  Nobody but yourself.  You are capable just like every other player to do the content provided to you and meet the requirements.  Quit saying you are banned from it, because you are not.  I'll change my mind on this if you allow me to craft 90+ tradeskill recipes without leveling my tradeskiller.

[Cabral]

Lyndro-EQ2 wrote:

The AA requirement won't be 320 for sure (We don't want to require AoD), the bar for earning XP in 90 is going to be 280, because you have your heroic endlines at that point (and I hate large primes so 277 wasn't going to work). The requirement exists so we (the developers) and you (the players) have a little more information about what a level 91+ player is. Right now if you form a pick up group, you really don't have an idea whether your tank has 65 AAs or 317 AAs. The same goes for us, content for a level 90 with few AAs is pretty different than content for a level 90 with a whole lot of them.

If we're playing the way we want and that way is soloing, a pick up group doesn't care how many AAs I have. Place the bar on heroic content, not on level. You must have 280 AAs to enter this zone.

This sort of gating would also make the Dungeon Finder more useful.

[gourdon]

Cloudrat wrote:

Sinnous wrote:

Cloud, I'm not trying to flame here but, killing is inherently part of how the everquest franchise has always handled advancement for the most part, yes you can get xp from other things as well, but that is truly just the nature of the game. That aside, you'll still be able to harvest the new zones at 90 without having to have a bajillion AAs the level 92 requirement for AAs is specifically referring to group/heroic content unless I missed something(which is possible).

Again not trying to flame or be condescending but I feel like your point is already addressed as taken care of, since you shouldn't have to kill anything to keep doing what you do.

Oh geez  I keep taking the bait.   I am fully aware  it is possible to harvest at 90.  I also didn't just fall off the turnip truck and I know it will be easier at 92. I should not have to run and get a bunch of AA for this to be possible. 

If you haven't finished your heroic AA tree, you will benefit more from over 2.5M xp in AAs than from 2 levels sans prestige abilities.  It won't even be close.

[Alenna]

Rosss@Everfrost wrote:

Alenna@Guk wrote:

Rosss@Everfrost wrote:

Katz wrote:

I think what bothers me about it..is that it is inconsistent with leveling and AA throughout all the other levels.   You go through with the two being not tied to each other in any way that gates you from leveling until level 90.  Then suddenly they are tied together.   Why?  Why weren't they tied together all along?  

Will it affect me in any significant way?  No.  My main has enough AA already and can continue to level. My alts I build AA's on before I level them just because they are easier to play when they have high AA's.  Plus, it is fun to research builds and experiment with how you allocate the aa points.  So that isn't it.  I will have enough AA points on my alts when they are level 90.

The change is creating cognitive dissonance, and that makes me, and probably others, uncomfortable. 

Someone needs to explain it in a way that makes sense.   That is, why does it make sense to tie AA level to your adventure level ONLY when you reach level 90.  Why does it make sense to change having the tab for prestige points say "you must have 280 aa points allocated before you can use prestige points".   Which is what I expected to happen.  I'm used to leveling affecting how you can allocate aa points and how many you can allocate in each tab.  I'm not used to aa points controlling leveling.

It makes sense because prestige is directly tied to leveling.  They are not like aa's.  You earn them as you level past 90.  1 prestige point for every 20% past 90.  So in essence levels > than 90 are "prestige levels", and the only reason you will need them is if you are doing heroic content.  That content is being designed around characters with a baseline of 280aa's so that the developers can have a standard idea of character power.  It is a good thing to have content standardized based upon certain character power checks, this is a very simple way to do that.  It makes it so you do not zone into an instance instantly get killed and then be upset because the content is ridiculously hard.  The standard is honestly set at a very good spot.  If you are currently doing heroic content and understand your class and care how you perform, 280aa's pretty much ensures you have your heroic endline (class defining abilities).

It will not affect your ability to do the new overland content, or gain aa xp from the new overland content so what's the problem?

but it does affect the albility of some people to gain adventure XP

Not if said people get off their tail ends and meet the aa requirement prior to go live of gu63.

It is not an unreasonable expectation folks.  What is being said is this...

IF you do not have 280aa then you will not be missing out on anything but lots of deaths, frustration, and getting hated by lots of people you are grouping with BECAUSE the content is designed around 280+ aa strengths.

So I will say it again you will have no need for the extra two levels because the content that you are accessing without the appropriate aa's is designed for characters <280 aa's.  You will be doing level/power appropriate content. 

If this is not acceptable see my first sentence above.  There is plenty of time to get to the minimum required aa's prior to GU 63 hitting live servers.

for your information I have 3 90s already.  2 of them at 300+, due to the fact that my guild wanted my warlock I had to PL her gimping her on AAs I just now got her to 215 AAs it has been slow going from 180 but I did it by doing writs wiht guildies to level our guild. Unfortunetly my guildmates have been busy trying to make sure thier main raiding toons are ready so have not had much time to help me I am doing what I can with my other commitments in RL.  I hve done this above while still doing the raids with our alliance(people who are more understanding then you appear to be by your words.). lets hope they give us a couple of bonus xp weekends before the GU hits becuase I do not want to be just at 280 but 300 so I can start pulling my weight during the raids.

It is not due to being lazy it is due to time factors of myself and my guildmates.

[alabama]

Enever wrote:

CleeGrahamx2099 wrote:

I am only stating this because I keep hearing this is a knock on casual players. My whole guild, 236 of us, is nothing but a casual guild and a lot of us hit this requirement or pretty close to hitting it. The ones that are saying you don't have the AA's because you have a lot of alts. Well im sorry but isn't that kind of your own doing? I mean, I focused on one char at a time that way I knew I could get him there. You don't have to raid because we don't but we all know how important AA's are even for grouping, it makes things a lot easier. I have two 90s at 320 AAs. Could have seven 90s at however many AA's but I didn't want to go that route. My advice is to focus on one character and get them to 280 then switch to a different one.

So those of us who had characters maxed before the introduction of AA is a bummer then, huh?

I created several characters to fit SEVERAL needs in whatever we need. But now, I'm screwed because I did that. The amount of Alts shouldn't even be mentioned.

I don't have much time to play i nthe week, and now, due to me, being busy in real life, I feel as if I'm being punished for being so.

I'm sorry, there shouldn't be an AA requirment to level again.

this argument is just rediculous. i hate everything $oe and even i dont find issue with this one.

guess what, i too had a max lvl 50 character with zero aa when the aa were introduced. you know what i did, went around solo questing and caught up to max in like a month of casual play. no groups. no raids. solo quests.

so 6 years later, you people who choose to play 400 different characters, are still under the aa cap and you want all the new content designed for people who wont even put in the time to finish what is already in the game.

no wonder this game is on its last leg.

[Cloudrat]

alabama wrote:

guess what, i too had a max lvl 50 character with zero aa when the aa were introduced. you know what i did, went around solo questing and caught up to max in like a month of casual play. no groups. no raids. solo quests.

no groups. no raids. solo quests.No fun.

Not the point.

 Everyone is saying people need to learn to play their toons before they group , they speed past content and level to 90 and have no aa. Then it's AA is easy to get, well again grind out AA by skipping content same story.

Edit:  Here's a thought.. This is nothing but a ruse, a political hotbutton to distract us while they stick harvestables back on the marketplace as a way to placate us?

[Michayla]

Eschia@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I have to agree with Cloudrat. I am also ashamed at the members of the EQ2 community who think barring your fellow players from leveling to max level is acceptable... AA should have nothing to do with levels. Do any of you even know what AA stands for? "Alternate Advancement". If it becomes a requirement to have them (even with solo content), then lets just remove the word "alternate" from the title completely. Not everybody is a min/maxer. Some of us want to have fun, and don't care about how high we get a skill or point pool. We want our veteran bonus, we want to be accepted in groups, and we want to enjoy the game the way it has always been. And lets face it we all know that when 92 is the cap, nobody will want to group with anyone lower. That's just how a lot of people roll these days. Some of you might be fine with pointless grinding of the same content over and over and over just to get a few numbers, but the rest of us would rather just have fun, and we shouldn't be denied level 91 just because we don't want to boringly grind AAs. It isn't fair to barricade people from leveling. It's like going back to forcing citizenship quests and access quests for the next overland zone all over again. I also believe our veteran bonuses will be moved to 92, leaving us without the extra boost, making us have to shill to the station cash beast to get pots. I don't care how you try to justify it, it's ludacris. There are other ways of achieving whateve goal SOE had in mind, that don't hurt players leveling up, and many people have shown you those ideas. I don't know of any other MMORPG out there that would be balzy enough to deny players from leveling up because they didn't complete something else. If I find one, I'd probably never play it because to me it would suck.

Wait, wait. You're demanding equal treatment for groups when you refuse to pull your weight? 

Pretty "balzy" of you to cry foul for SoE somehow impeding on your fun while you demand to be carried through heroic content, thus impeding on the fun of your other group members because they are essentially working with a team of 5 because you CHOOSE to be useless.

Group implies more than just you and your little world. You want to do heroic content with your equally useless guild mates go right ahead. Knock yourselves silly. The majority don't enjoy 3-5 hour spire runs. Don't join my PUG and expect to be treated fairly.

[Arturoz]

thank god someone over there in sony land did something worth a darn, people are complaining because they are not tall enough to ride the roller coaster...  Sure you paid your dollor but ur not big enough.   Get over it and enjoy your game how you have been enjoying it..  Or as i tell my youngest im sorry kiddo maybe you will be tall enough next time.

On a good note now i dont have to grind out crit mit and AAs to enjoy content...   perhaps with this AA gate pugs might be worth joining...

/edit  on a side note for those folks that are willing to do the work sony would go a long way at smoothing over their ruffled feathers by providing some bonus xp time to quests and such.

[Elomort]

Like Cylenia has said and Cloudrat echoed this thread has brought out the nastiest most toxic nature in the Everquest2 community. When we see events like Ribbetribbet's show just how warmhearted people who play this game can be the juxtaposition to this toxic elitist attitude is quite shocking and quite frankly disgusting.

I just hope SOE remember that they are going to be pushing a lot of new players to burn-out. The hard work we are putting in to get our toons ready has a chance to backfire on SOE by driving people off to other games, burnt out.

My three toons I am taking on to 92 from the outset are all less than a year old. After this week I now have 251, 257 and 210 AAs on them up from 147, 130 and 160, I think I will get these to 280 each before April 17, but will I want to play?

Will I want to keep spending SC and subscribing though after grinding them up in such a short time?

If you read this Lyndro, consider burn out and the bleeding of your game's new blood.

[Raknid]

Elomort wrote:

Like Cylenia has said and Cloudrat echoed this thread has brought out the nastiest most toxic nature in the Everquest2 community. When we see events like Ribbetribbet's show just how warmhearted people who play this game can be the juxtaposition to this toxic elitist attitude is quite shocking and quite frankly disgusting.

I just hope SOE remember that they are going to be pushing a lot of new players to burn-out. The hard work we are putting in to get our toons ready has a chance to backfire on SOE by driving people off to other games, burnt out.

My three toons I am taking on to 92 from the outset are all less than a year old. After this week I now have 251, 257 and 210 AAs on them up from 147, 130 and 160, I think I will get these to 280 each before April 17, but will I want to play?

Will I want to keep spending SC and subscribing though after grinding them up in such a short time?

If you read this Lyndro, consider burn out and the bleeding of your game's new blood.

You are burning yourself out. It is not the games fault.

[Banditman]

Elomort wrote:

Like Cylenia has said and Cloudrat echoed this thread has brought out the nastiest most toxic nature in the Everquest2 community. When we see events like Ribbetribbet's show just how warmhearted people who play this game can be the juxtaposition to this toxic elitist attitude is quite shocking and quite frankly disgusting.

I just hope SOE remember that they are going to be pushing a lot of new players to burn-out. The hard work we are putting in to get our toons ready has a chance to backfire on SOE by driving people off to other games, burnt out.

My three toons I am taking on to 92 from the outset are all less than a year old. After this week I now have 251, 257 and 210 AAs on them up from 147, 130 and 160, I think I will get these to 280 each before April 17, but will I want to play?

Will I want to keep spending SC and subscribing though after grinding them up in such a short time?

If you read this Lyndro, consider burn out and the bleeding of your game's new blood.

If you don't have 280 AA (at least), then no, you are NOT putting in the work.  You're not!  Now, SOE is making sure that you do.  Now, when you don't pull your own weight in a group, you can look yourself squarely in the mirror and go "Yea, there's the problem right there."

No longer can you say to yourself "Oh, if I only had the AA's" or "I would be fine if I had the gear".  Excuses = gone.  Crit Mit fixed the gear issue, and now this change to leveling fixes the other.  Fail now, and it is squarely on your shoulders.  Blame goes where it should.

Burnout?  You want to talk about burnout?  I've been playing since November of 2004.  I could tell you stories of a time when just ZONING to Enchanted Lands was NOT POSSIBLE unless you did a quest first!  Raid mobs were not a guaranteed Exquisite Chest.  There were less than 10 heroic instances in the entire GAME.  Don't bring that new player burnout into the house.  New players have things 1000 times easier today than they were then.

The player bleed is coming from continuing to make the game too accessible.  Catering to the lowest common denominator.  This tiny step really changes nothing except to set a bar that should have been there long before now.  I can take a character from birth to L90 in less than 2 days /played, easily.  Does that mean my character should then be ready to jump into Drunder?

I think not.

[Rosss]

Banditman wrote:

Elomort wrote:

Like Cylenia has said and Cloudrat echoed this thread has brought out the nastiest most toxic nature in the Everquest2 community. When we see events like Ribbetribbet's show just how warmhearted people who play this game can be the juxtaposition to this toxic elitist attitude is quite shocking and quite frankly disgusting.

I just hope SOE remember that they are going to be pushing a lot of new players to burn-out. The hard work we are putting in to get our toons ready has a chance to backfire on SOE by driving people off to other games, burnt out.

My three toons I am taking on to 92 from the outset are all less than a year old. After this week I now have 251, 257 and 210 AAs on them up from 147, 130 and 160, I think I will get these to 280 each before April 17, but will I want to play?

Will I want to keep spending SC and subscribing though after grinding them up in such a short time?

If you read this Lyndro, consider burn out and the bleeding of your game's new blood.

If you don't have 280 AA (at least), then no, you are NOT putting in the work.  You're not!  Now, SOE is making sure that you do.  Now, when you don't pull your own weight in a group, you can look yourself squarely in the mirror and go "Yea, there's the problem right there."

No longer can you say to yourself "Oh, if I only had the AA's" or "I would be fine if I had the gear".  Excuses = gone.  Crit Mit fixed the gear issue, and now this change to leveling fixes the other.  Fail now, and it is squarely on your shoulders.  Blame goes where it should.

Burnout?  You want to talk about burnout?  I've been playing since November of 2004.  I could tell you stories of a time when just ZONING to Enchanted Lands was NOT POSSIBLE unless you did a quest first!  Raid mobs were not a guaranteed Exquisite Chest.  There were less than 10 heroic instances in the entire GAME.  Don't bring that new player burnout into the house.  New players have things 1000 times easier today than they were then.

The player bleed is coming from continuing to make the game too accessible.  Catering to the lowest common denominator.  This tiny step really changes nothing except to set a bar that should have been there long before now.  I can take a character from birth to L90 in less than 2 days /played, easily.  Does that mean my character should then be ready to jump into Drunder?

I think not.

This..^^^^  +1 x ∞

[CoLD MeTaL]

Banditman wrote:

...If you don't have 280 AA (at least), then no, you are NOT putting in the work.  You're not!  Now, SOE is making sure that you do.  Now, when you don't pull your own weight in a group, you can look yourself squarely in the mirror and go "Yea, there's the problem right there."...

And I wanting to get my conj ready for this stupidity started doing everything to level his AA.  I played half the weekend continously grinding on heroic mobs all weekend for 1.5aa levels with vitality, potion, and max vet bonus at 250aa to 251.5.  The rate is absolutely stupid at this point.

[Raknid]

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

Banditman wrote:

...If you don't have 280 AA (at least), then no, you are NOT putting in the work.  You're not!  Now, SOE is making sure that you do.  Now, when you don't pull your own weight in a group, you can look yourself squarely in the mirror and go "Yea, there's the problem right there."...

And I wanting to get my conj ready for this stupidity started doing everything to level his AA.  I played half the weekend continously grinding on heroic mobs all weekend for 1.5aa levels with vitality, potion, and max vet bonus at 250aa to 251.5.  The rate is absolutely stupid at this point.

What qualifies as half the weekend? Half of 48 hours? Half of your regular play time? What? Saying that means nothing without telling us how long you played, where you played, and what you were killing.

Protip: If a mob you are killing doesn't seem to offer the EXP you are looking for, or if the number of mob kills/ minute(s) is low, go check someplace else.

[Koleg]

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

Banditman wrote:

...If you don't have 280 AA (at least), then no, you are NOT putting in the work.  You're not!  Now, SOE is making sure that you do.  Now, when you don't pull your own weight in a group, you can look yourself squarely in the mirror and go "Yea, there's the problem right there."...

And I wanting to get my conj ready for this stupidity started doing everything to level his AA.  I played half the weekend continously grinding on heroic mobs all weekend for 1.5aa levels with vitality, potion, and max vet bonus at 250aa to 251.5.  The rate is absolutely stupid at this point.

First of all I have 500 Plat I'll bet anyone that there is a Double XP event 4/6 thu 4/8 ....

Secondly, On my new /played 4d 20h 90/315 toon I ran the Domanance this weekend with and with the few quests, zone Discos, Named mob kills and 3 zone clears Im now 90/318.  And I did NOT use any Pots.  So, 3.5 AA's for doing 3 zones and finishing maybe 7 quests at the 300+ AA level... It's not all that slow.

[Cloudrat]

This whole thing is silly, all because it's easier for the dev to dole out prestige points by tying them to levels.

There was no reason  that 280 AA couldn't have been the req for various instances  and for spending prestige points. There are plenty of points on the AA trees where  x amount of aa is needed to be spent before a section opens up.

Big waste of time and worrying about what the other guy does and how he does it.

[Geothe]

Cloudrat wrote:

This whole thing is silly, all because it's easier for the dev to dole out prestige points by tying them to levels.

There was no reason  that 280 AA couldn't have been the req for various instances  and for spending prestige points. There are plenty of points on the AA trees where  x amount of aa is needed to be spent before a section opens up.

Big waste of time and worrying about what the other guy does and how he does it.

On the contrary,

Its logical tying prestige points to level, and preventing gaining those levels until your character reaches a certain power threshold. And no, 280 AAs is not a high bar to set at all, especially when the cap has been 300AA for what, over a year now?

The fact that the entire playerbase will know that you have at least some effort invested in your character (as far as skills go) because being lvl 91+ requires you to also have at least 280 AAs is a huge improvement.

I never PUG heroic instances anymore because I'm sick of under-developed players not being able to pull their weight in a group entirely due to the fact they have jack-squat for AAs and therefore, dont have certain key abilities which make a big difference in a grouping setting.  Having a threshold that guarantees everyone at or above that level are also at or above an AA threshold will definitely lead me to group more with them, and i know I am not the only one in that boat either.

[Raknid]

Cloudrat wrote:

This whole thing is silly, all because it's easier for the dev to dole out prestige points by tying them to levels.

There was no reason  that 280 AA couldn't have been the req for various instances  and for spending prestige points. There are plenty of points on the AA trees where  x amount of aa is needed to be spent before a section opens up.

Big waste of time and worrying about what the other guy does and how he does it.

What old content (preLU) wont you be able to do the day after the LU launches that you could do before?

What content that is added with the LU, and which is designed for your playstyle, wont you be able to do?

In other words, exactly what is that you will be barred from, besides being level 91 or 92? 

[Finora]

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

Banditman wrote:

...If you don't have 280 AA (at least), then no, you are NOT putting in the work.  You're not!  Now, SOE is making sure that you do.  Now, when you don't pull your own weight in a group, you can look yourself squarely in the mirror and go "Yea, there's the problem right there."...

And I wanting to get my conj ready for this stupidity started doing everything to level his AA.  I played half the weekend continously grinding on heroic mobs all weekend for 1.5aa levels with vitality, potion, and max vet bonus at 250aa to 251.5.  The rate is absolutely stupid at this point.

If it's taking you that long, then you are doing something wrong. I don't know what, but something is not right there & it's not the speed at which aa is granted by SOE. It shouldn't be taking you that long to get 1.5aa even if you had zero bonuses. Ask around, if you want to grind out the aa on heriocs maybe you are just doing it in a bad spot. I personally prefer running through old zones either solo (sometimes mentored down) or as a duo.

[Cabral]

Banditman wrote:

If you don't have 280 AA (at least), then no, you are NOT putting in the work.  You're not!  Now, SOE is making sure that you do.  Now, when you don't pull your own weight in a group, you can look yourself squarely in the mirror and go "Yea, there's the problem right there."

If the concern is pulling your own weight in a group, then put the restriction on heroic content. Right now we are talking about increasing the level cap by two levels, but it will eventually creep higher. You may not be barring people from solo content yet, but if this becomes a trend, then you will be. 

Put the restriction on heroic content, not the solo content, not on levelling.

[CleeGrahamx2099]

I disagree that this will be barring people from solo content because it's probably going to be months before we see another level increase so there is no reason at all that you can't get 280 AA's and level 92 before that happens.

[Elmandar]

let me start by saying, I'm a casual player and have always had fun levelling up when new levels were introduced.

I've been playing EQ2 from the beginning, and have only amassed about 216AA, which I've ALWAYS felt was alternate, ie-an option. Many of the AAs are nice and provide definite advantages in combat, but I never felt it was something that was absolutely needed.  From my point of view... getting 91 and 92 will mean I have to GRIND AA, which is going to be a total pain. (I don't like grinding anything, sorry guys)

I'm sure there are alot of hotshots out there that will say i'm wrong and that we all need this minimum powerbase to do content at the higher levels. feh... different people play with different styles and preferences. Many of my levels were earned when AA was not available (ie-pre-AA) so for characters like mine, getting more AA is an annoyance... and something that makes the game less fun.

To the point: Tying levels to AA is a mistake. For What It's Worth, it's bad idea and it will alienate casual players.

In a free-to-play world, there are many casual players. Do you really want to just go ahead and alienate a bunch of them?

[Onorem]

Elmandar wrote:

let me start by saying, I'm a casual player and have always had fun levelling up when new levels were introduced.

I've been playing EQ2 from the beginning, and have only amassed about 216AA, which I've ALWAYS felt was alternate, ie-an option. Many of the AAs are nice and provide definite advantages in combat, but I never felt it was something that was absolutely needed.  From my point of view... getting 91 and 92 will mean I have to GRIND AA, which is going to be a total pain. (I don't like grinding anything, sorry guys)

I'm sure there are alot of hotshots out there that will say i'm wrong and that we all need this minimum powerbase to do content at the higher levels. feh... different people play with different styles and preferences. Many of my levels were earned when AA was not available (ie-pre-AA) so for characters like mine, getting more AA is an annoyance... and something that makes the game less fun.

To the point: Tying levels to AA is a mistake. For What It's Worth, it's bad idea and it will alienate casual players.

In a free-to-play world, there are many casual players. Do you really want to just go ahead and alienate a bunch of them?

AAs are an option. So are levels. I would prefer they restricted instances instead of levels at this point, but understand completely why they'd want to do something like this for zone balancing.

[Elveswood]

I just read 18 pages of people crying about how they are too lazy to grind AA, they do not want to go back and do old content, they made their characters pre-aa's, and I can't help but laugh. I have six level 90 characters five of which have 320AA. I am both a casual player, and raider. It is so easy to attain both levels and AA's at this point!!!! I have three characters that were created in 2005, all of them have max AA. If you feel you "deserve" to get level 91+ but you are not even willing to meet a prerequisite you are wrong. Ironic as it is some of you are even complaining that you have to earn thoes extra two levels AND you have to get more aa?!?!? I am willing to bet some of you who are complaining are the "casual players" who sit in the guild hall and chat all day instead of actually going out and experiencing the content offered. You might be amazed at how quickly you gain thoes ever so illusive AA's if you actually try.

[Raknid]

Elmandar wrote:

I've been playing EQ2 from the beginning, and have only amassed about 216AA, which I've ALWAYS felt was alternate, ie-an option. 

From my point of view... getting 91 and 92 will mean I have to GRIND AA, which is going to be a total pain. (I don't like grinding anything, sorry guys)

There will be no solo designed content, from either the stuff that existed prior to this LU, or the stuff which is introduced with the LU, that you will not be able to do at level 90.

You don't need to grind AA becuase you don't NEED to level to 92 to do the stuff designed for you. In that way you can just consider these "alternate" levels that don't affect you in the slightest.

As a matter of fact, you will benefit MUCH more in the content that is designed for you by getting those 64 extra AA (up to 280) than by simply having two levels.

[Rijacki]

I have two level 90 adventurers. One is maxed in everything except adorning, the other is maxed in everything except adorning (I have a non-90 who is 400+ in adorning) and AA.

My non-AA maxed is Rijacki whom I play casually and kinda haphazzardly and who was started on the very first day of EQ2's launch. She's been more of a tradeskill character and my personna than a character with whom I adventure

At the beginning of the weekend she was 220 AA. One the weekend, I went to one instance, partially, the Kael contested with my boyfriend and another friend, the TSO Everfrost instances with my boyfriend two-boxing with mercs, and then soloed a bit. On Monday night in the hour I played her, she got to 231 AA. I didn't spend even one dime on the Marketplace for potions (and won't). I did consume vet XP bonus potions, when I remembered, while we were in Kael and the Everfrost missions (2 of the 3 Rijacki hadn't been in yet *laugh*). I don't use vet potions while doing solo stuff 'cause I know the bonus only affects kill XP and overland (solo stuff) the kill XP is laughably low.

On Rijacki, I still have more than 1/2 of the DoV solo quests still undone and solo quests in SF and TSO which aren't done as well as solo and heroic quests in a lot of lower level stuff, too. Even though she did oodles of quests before AA were added (I have gone through phases of quest-ocd on her and other characters) and was at level cap before AA were added and was at level cap at least once before it was raised (not for DoV's increase, though, I had been adventuring with other characters more), with the addition of more and more and more quests that have occured since AA were added, there are a plethora of quests she still hasn't done, including many HQ and SQ quests (I am missing most HQ and SQ on Rjack, 90/90/320/450/450/??).

I will likely hit 280+ AA on Rijacki before the GU.

My other characters range in levels from 20s to 87. All the ones below 80 (which is all but 4 of my characters) have their adventure XP throttled so I can play them casually and not have them outlevel stuff too quickly so I can enjoy the journey with them. On each of them, I don't do -all- the quests possible, usually one one or two areas of a level range before moving on (varying which character does what content). When I see 100% new quest lines that weren't there when I first went through there as Rijacki (or another character) while at that level range years ago, I note it for potentially using mentored down if I run out of stuff higher level, it has rarely happened in the cycle of an expansion. This is why I find it so utterly ridiculous the allegation that there's not enough quests and content without getting "credit" for quests pre-AA.

Unless you disable adventure XP (disable, not use the slider to convert it) and AA XP, it really is hard to not obtain AAs doing regular stuff in the game, not grinding mindlessly.

But... since 91 and 92 are going to be prestige levels for adventuring, I hope that, for adventuring only, the 'max level' bonus remains at 90 (it won't affect me much either way since I have so few adventure 90s).

[Peogia]

Rijacki wrote:

But... since 91 and 92 are going to be prestige levels for adventuring, I hope that, for adventuring only, the 'max level' bonus remains at 90 (it won't affect me much either way since I have so few adventure 90s).

How about a Prestige bonus that is atleast double or more that of that regular bonus

[CoLD MeTaL]

I know no one agrees with me, but I still believe that this game should be doing things to 'encourage' grouping, and not yet again splitting the player base. 

This is critmit part deux.

[akin99]

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

I know no one agrees with me, but I still believe that this game should be doing things to 'encourage' grouping, and not yet again splitting the player base. 

This is critmit part deux.

I am hopeful that this will encourage Pugging. Since you will know that a level 91 or 92 has at least most of the good AA's. I think people will be more inclined to group than the currently.

You should have to deal with fewer people who are so under AAed for the zone that they hold the team back rather than help it.