Dethdlr Akil “Lyndro” Hooper has posted a followup to his interview with Piestro on the official forums:
Hey folks,
I know that much of this is information that you already knew, but we wanted to get everything in a centralized place, so people don’t have to dig around to try and find the answers to these questions.
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.
Great move. Can’t wait to see the casual player backlash because they feel grinding AA’s are “too hard”.
Everyone remember the hard level cap of 99/100? Just remember that this 2 level rise is REALLY more like a 10 level rise with the level bit scaled to 2 (20%).So expect levels to take 5x longer than expected and the slow progress won’t be so irritating.
I like the AA barrier, too. At least in theory 91+ rooms have the AA to be spec’d well (no guarantee they are no-fail, but > nothing).
lol well there goes the solo speed demon level folks who have only 100aa, guess what no level 92 for you until you ground out your aa. So in other words if your not a raider your out of luck. Wow.
This is the best news I have seen yet.
@Badcat: You really think you have to be a raider to max out AAs? Go kill stuff, do adventure writs, solo shard quests, chronomentor down and run old zones, old quests, old HQs. There are tons and tons of things to do in this game to gain AAs. You do NOT have to be a raider to max out AAs.
Unfortunately for me, sitting around and chatting in the guild hall doesn’t give me AAs so I’ve got some work to do on my tank. And my other 4 level 90s. At least my coercer is at 320. 🙂
I am a casual player in a casual guild and have only raided maybe 3 times in my life but I have to say I really like this barrier. I have two characters up to level 90 with 320 AAs because even though I am not a raider, I know if I want to get into the harder heroic content, I will need to get my AA’s up and fully know my class. I don’t think you can really know your class unless you can max your class and in doing that, you need the AA’s.
@Dethdlr — Yeahreally. I’ve never raided. AAs I got, no problem.
I would agree. It is not that hard to get 320 AA. The few raids I have been on really annoyed me, so I don’t do them, but have maxed out AA on a couple of toons. My only problem with this is that my wife insists my main can’t do the quests without her, and she is nowhere near high enough on her AA. I guess it is time to push her on it. *smile*
Low on AA’s? Do HQ’s, Signature Quests. If it’s not your main character, you’ve likely overlooked these. Heck my 4th 90 Alt has 30 unfinished L&L’s. The AA’s are out there, you just have to find them.
@deathdlr I know many of a person who rushed to level 90 and they have roughtly 120 aa there abouts, now All my 90’s have 300 aa because i refused to get aod. But there are a lot of folks who donve have anywhere near 280aa, becasue they rush and get it done, then they complain when the raid want take them in. That is what I was saying and still do.
I think $OE just gave casual players the bird.
Ouch, I am one of those who rushed to 90 soloing, I have 7 there and the highest AA is 242 with most under 115- this change will really force me to expand my horizons. Guess it’s time to start completing old quests and catching up with at least one toon! Hopefully we’ll see a double exp weekend before release so I can get some AAs
Fantastic addition to what should be great content 🙂
I like this. It may have another unitended side affect of slowing leveling down so there are a bit more people in each zone…like 2-3 instead of just 1 (me). 😉
The only group that I expect to be seriously impacted at this point by this is those that have a lot of alts.
For once, I’m on the other side of the casual v. raider debate, as I don’t really think of this being a problem at all (despite being a casual player). The content itself is not gated… so people can run into the zones and try them at lvl 90 and 150 aas, if they want. Getting AAs is easy regardless of casual vs. raider playstyle, so this seems pretty equitable.
Been a subscriber since EQ2 launched. What about the toons like I have who were created back when there were no AA’s. They have done all the solo content, HQ’s, languages, L&L’s…and all done before the inception of an AA point. Where do they get content to raise those precious AA points?
I’m a solo player, part of a small lvl 72 guild of 2 people, don’t raid anymore and when I read “looking for non-suck whatever for a zone” I’m turned off by grouping. The 280 AA point minimum to begin leveling to 92 seems plain wrong to me. I feel its a punishment.
This is Bu**Shit
I do some raiding myself, but almost all of my AA’s come from running dungeons, low level raids, questing and completing collections (and a bit from the tradeskilling I guess).
In short anything you do in the game earns AA, serious raiding on the other hand is the closest thing to earning negative XP (I’ve seen people with 90% XP debt) 🙂
They get the content from the six years of content that has been added since AAs were introduced. AAs were added in February of 2006 with the Kingdom of Sky expansion. Six years ago. I’m pretty sure there have been more HQs added AFTER AAs were introduced than existed before they were introduced. I’ll fully agree that characters that were created before KoS got hosed on AAs. But that was six years ago. That excuse is getting a bit worn out me thinks.
I do a little of everything, including raiding…and the sole reason I don’t have more than my two ‘mains’ past that threshold is…well, I have 7 90s and a host of ‘smaller’ alts. And I screw around a whole lot. So it’s really nobody’s fault but mine there.
This is not a terribly awful gate to pass, guys. Besides, there will be plenty for the sub-91s to do still until they hit 280 AA.
Like say, wait for the bugs to get stomped. You’ll get the broken-in version instead of the bleeding edge one! 8)
I didn’t have a problem getting to max AA without raiding. I think the cap is fine, but I can see where some players wouldn’t want to grind 100 AAs at 90 so they can hit level 91… The 280 number seems high; I wish they had made it like 200 to level up to 91 and then 250 to level to 92 or something like that.
Not trying to troll, but you could get 320AA bumping into trees in this game. Spend an hour a day doing DoV faction quests, pop a potion, mentor down and do Clefts or Chardock – if people are going to cry about needing 280AA to access new levels – I just don’t get it. I think of AA *as* levels – why would I not go adventure, quest, explore, kill AA mobs to get AA “levels” and to get my toon better, think of it that way. You didn’t hit enough AA levels to be able to level higher. For disclosure I have been in the game since day 1, play 1 toon, have over 5,000 quests done but have a 60 hour a week job and an outside EQ life, so not grinding 8 hour days on the computer. Agreed that this will hurt power-levelers and those who play a lot of alts regularly.
And about raiding being correlated to AA – this is silly. If you think spending 3 hours in a dungeon, sometimes wiping regularly to kill a few mobs (most of farm status which don’t give more AA) is the difference between max and lower AA, that is asinine.
Raiding does not give you AAs. It’s the other way around honestly–you need AAs to be an effective raider, in any serious fashion.
Having trouble getting AAs without grinding? Chrono down and hit the quest lines you missed before. Still short? Mentor a lowbie–it can be loads of fun and of benefit to both!
It’s true, maxing your AA’s is not truly difficult. It just takes work- which, admittedly, is the bane of many a decent player in this game, but that’s the way of things these days. Doesn’t matter what sort of player you are; if you want 300 AA’s, you can have 300 AA’s. Put in the time like the rest of us have already done / will soon be doing.
If you’re lv90 and low on AA: pick up a merc, chrono to lv80, zone into Chelsith, and wipe out every fishman in the zone minus the names. If lv80 is too punishing for your particular class, try lv85 instead. 30mins after you zone in, zone back out and start over. Most classes can handle this to good effect, and depending on your gear, you could ditch the merc and increase your XP uptake. Bring a friend and grind AA’s together. Don’t forget your XP potions.
Other popular destinations: Chardok, Sebilis, The Hole, Den of the Devourer.. Pick your heroic content, chrono to appropriate level, and go nuts. Plenty of zones, both instanced and contested, to switch up your routine.
Concerning raiders and AA’s: the above experiment in 30mins will produce vastly more AA than a 4-hour raid through multiple zones. Epic x4 mobs DO NOT give tons of XP. With the exception of Tallon’s, where the mobs are worth about 1 Chelsith fishman apiece.
So what happens to the XP/Tradeskill bonus for max level chars? If a char is 47 advnenturer with 112 AA but a master crafter will they have to raise both adventuring level to 90 and then AA cap to 280 before they can regain their crafting bonus?
I know this is a tad offtopic, but I was wondering if with the levelcap we get a new tier of adornments? Lvl 90 ones. Does anyone know this?
Raiding can only be said to encourage AA’s in the sense that without them you will not be raiding long. Therefore it’s a bit of a motivator for those that enjoy raiding.
I’m not sure, how I feel about this change. Isn’t the whole idea of aa(alternate advancement) that it gives you choice. Although I guess the idea of aa being optional has died a long time ago. If it’s not optional then just call it advancements :p . I still think 320 aa is a stupidly high number, they really need to cut it down to about 200 max if not less.(less points do more, there’s no reason why I need 10 ranks of a skill if they could just adjust it to 5 ranks with the same power, but give me less aa)
“I still think 320 aa is a stupidly high number, they really need to cut it down to about 200 max if not less.”
Spoken like a player who doesn’t want to put the work in. You are aware that EQ1 has over 10,000 AA’s right? I wish EQ2 took that approach.
@Rocky
320 is the max AA’s you can have with AoD. 280 is what you need to level past 90.
277 is required for endline heroics. This ensures pugs will find tanks and healers able to tackle new content without lacking that beneficial ability.
Also, I often pump the leveling brakes on toons now and then by moving that slider to one hundred percent to AA because, clearly, AA can have real value, depending on how you spend it. I’m used to the idea it makes your toon more effective as you level it.
Full group of 90s needing AA!
Kael Drakkel contested.
The mobs all give huge EXP. No joke, highest EXP per mob of any zone in the entire game, and that is on purpose and prolly wont be nerfed ever.
All named give AA, NOT ONLY the first time but EVERY time you kill them.
There are 7 daily shard quests, 6 of which are statue quests and give 7p.
T9 drops are transmutes if you already have better.
You just need 200% crit chance on all people in the group and a healer that can cure.
http://eq2.zam.com/wiki/Kael_Drakkel_%28EQ2_Quest_Series%29#Kael_Drakkel_%28Contested%29
Bonus XP weekend + XP potion + hit things = max AAs in a day or two. Even faster if you have help from a powerful SK or whatever. I’ve done it on many characters, alone, and it’s almost a joke how easy it is.
(Not that I think this proposed feature is a good one.)
Considering at lvl 10 you can grind out 320 AA in 1 day on a double exp weekend I do not see what all the crying is about… On a non double exp weekend, and no rested exp I can grind out 100 AA in 4 hours. All of that and watching a movie to boot 😀
I am glad they are doing this, there are enough crappy players sitting at 90 as it is, your casual? Thats nice, you go group with other casuals, cause the people with 320 AA are sick of carring your asses.
So having 280 or even 320 aa automatically makes you a great player? Are they giving written exams and having one you run through ‘test’ zones to see if you are up to snuff now?
Dont get me wrong i completely understand their reasoning. But a bad player is a bad player regardless of gear or AA. 90 + 320 AA + Gear =/= Skill. I cant think of a single class that really gains much above about 280 AA anyways. 5% run speed and 25% longer food and drink ftw?
Also, if everyone can go get 320 AA in an afternoon, its really not a good metric to sort out the ‘goods’ and the ‘bads’. It just means a crappy player can pay someone 50 plat to grind their aa’s for them… Now thats a test of skill.
It’s funny. Everybody always tells me the level system is just there for training, and the real game starts after you hit max level, but when it comes to sticking up obstacles to prolong leveling, that’s when folks get happy that other people may not be able to reach it. Who cares if some other player reached 90 in 1 day? It don’t effect me. It took me 3 years to reach max level on my original toon back in 09. If end game is where the real game starts, then we should be easily able to get there without a ton of AA grinding. I agree with Kosovos. Flame me if you must, but not everybody plays this game to max out and crunch every last number.
I’ve asked this on the official forums and still haven’t gotten an answer. I honestly don’t know the answer so I’m not trying to be a jerk, I’m honestly looking for a real answer.
What is it that you can’t do at level 90 that you can do at level 92?
Are their solo quests that you can’t pick up at level 90? What solo content are people being prevented from doing at level 90 other than seeing the part of their UI that shows adventure level from saying 92?
If the casual solo players can pick up all the solo quests from GU63 at level 90, why do you need to level up to 92 anyway? It doesn’t give you access to any of the content that you claim to be interested in anyway, right?
@dethdlr
I think the only thing they would nto get would be the prestige points. Otherwise they should be able to do all the content. Now if the raid mobs are 100 they would go splat. but they could see it. 🙂
On a side note, it is not hard to get aa’s for toons. Just takes a little work and not standing around in the guild hall all day waiting for someone to hold your hand. And if you don’t want the aa you don’t have to lvl to 92. Nothing is forcing you to.
@Kruzzen:
That’s exactly my point. And if they aren’t interested in the end line heroic AA abilities (which require 277? 280?), why on earth would they be interested in the prestige abilities which they have said would be way less powerful?
People are making this out as though level 92 is a requirement. I have seen exactly nothing to indicate that is the case so far. From what I have seen, if you like to solo, level 90 will let you solo anything you want. If you want to do the new end game group or raid content, then you may want to level up to 92. But it’s not forcing solo players to do anything from what I’ve seen so far (subject to change with new data. 🙂 ).
It sounds like its mostly a tag for other people to look at and balance content around. Apparently SOE thinks that the large gap in power between a player with 180 AA and 280 AA means that requiring you to get to a certain point means 1. when forming a group you can assume something about a lvl 92 character that you cant about a 90, and 2. Devs can balance all skyshrine content around 280+ AA, instead of a larger difficulty range. I don’t think anybody would argue that ToFS instances required capping your AA to complete.
This just goes to show that people will complain on just about anything..
For those people that have been playing for 6 years and still aren’t max AA – WTF do you do in game? Scratch your ass in the guild hall? To me, EQ is running out in the world doing quests, killing mobs, finding the next peice of gear that I can use for appearance..all of which give AA
Since I’ve played EQ2, he’ll even in EQ1, you weren’t worth a sh*t unless you had a certain number of AAs…stop complaining and get yourselves out there and kill some mobs…it really isn’t that hard…when AoD came out (keep in mind I’m a casual player that likes to raid every now and then) I got my BL to 90 and 320 AA in 3-4 weeks, you just have to know all the spots to go..
Hint: go to anathema…
Maybe this will boost attendance on double xp events and/or xp potion sales. I had several 90s below 200 at one point and after a single double XP weekend and a potion or two (and LOTS of playing) all of them hit cap.
Seriously, if you don’t play much but want to pop in for later content, wait for a double XP weekend and use a potion if you really want to speed through the AAs. We got quite a bit killing things in contested Kael in small groups… it just rolled in.
Level 92 WILL BE REQUIRED BY THE PLAYERBASE to do anything, further ostracizing anyone who isn’t level 92. Group content, raid content, all content with another person. in an MMO, that’s bad.
I would bet a billion plat you wouldn’t group with a 90 at level 92.
I hope this will limit power leveling. There is a glut of people who simply have no idea how to play their classes, especially bards. It’s getting out of control.
The clarion call of casual players has always been “I play the game at my own pace, I like to explore everything”. Well if you have explored every zone, killed every named, and done everything the game has to offer, I’m not sure how folks are so low on AA, especially on a main character.
Mentor to 40 and run Enchanted Lands, Runnyeye, etc. top to bottom. Don’t “grind”. Just do each zone, clear it, and then zone out. Mentor to 50 and repeat in Obelisk of Lost Souls. Mentor to 70 and run Nest of the Great Egg, Palace of the Awakened, and Den of the Devourer.
All of this is a couple hours of gameplay and does not require raid gear, or “grinding”, just playing the content. With the tremendous amount of gear inflation over the years, all of the level 1-70 content is completely trivial even when mobs are triple arrow heroic blue or white.
If only SOE wouldn’t yank the leash by nerfing instance XP, forcing more people into already overcrowded contested zones. If they started spinning up instances of Palace of the Awakened every 6 players, we’d be in good shape. 😉
In agreement with Mike M in less abrasive terminology… I “accidentally” hit Max AA just but grouping everything night. I admit I also have sets of friends that like playing together. So, we socialize while running zones or exploring contested content or the flavor of the month holiday content and poof-your bound to get AA because if your already 90 they’re automatic.
@Dethdlr – 92 also sticks with to the theme of mastercrafted every x2nd level. While, they clearly stated that as a reason.. I like that it helps raiders, crafters, group, and solo players.
Like you said, it’s being implemented not as requirement; but, if one does decide to go to 92 everyone across the board has a clear pictures of what that is. Also, as Lyndro states, what kinda monster is a level 92 player fighting.
hahah, so you know the snakes and spiders that kicked our hineys in dov were like “whoa.. these overland rats, spiders, and bats hurt”. well lvl 92, rats, spiders, and bats have a preconceived notion that they didn’t get to the top of rat, spider, or bat hierarchy with simple bites… they’re gonna be packing enough to challenge a character with 280.
I am a casual player and I have to agree here even if I dont meet the requirement on my toons that its fair. I dont even try to get into groups with other players because I know I am not up to snuff. I would imagine though that is not the case with all.
There are many that power level and in doing so lack aa and also experience on their toon as well. We as casual players need to respect that there are those that put in the work and time and should be rewarded for it.
Where is our reward you may ask? How about mercs….that was a big plus for us casual players. So I guess for me…a little aa grind 🙂 Lets try
and understand the reasoning here, because it really is fair.
I’m a casual player who raids occasionally, but I certainly need to work on AA. My 90 paladin, who I started when the game came out in 2004, has only 240 AA. Time to grind!
With the tremendous amount of gear inflation over the years, all of the level 1-70 content is completely trivial even when mobs are triple arrow heroic blue or white.
Or even yellow and orange, as a lowbie paladin mentored by my 90 ‘zerker learned the other night. AA for the mentor, faster advancement and easier gear upgrades for the lowbie–mentoring is truly something that benefits both parties, and it’s a shame that for some reason ‘power leveling’ is the only time it pops up, and then it’s such a pejorative thing…
Ah well, I guess I’m on my old ‘Help a Newbie – Help Yourselves’ soapbox again.
I have only one level 90 char with 221 aa, most of my other level 90 chars have under 200 aa, some of them been playing sense the game came out. So i am a little pissed off when i saw you need 285 to go past 90. even if i used a exp potion every day( that is if i had thata many) played 10-12 hours every day didd not spend time with family or work, i make 1 aa per day so it will take me 64 days just for the one char with the most aa, just to get to 285, never mind the othere chars.
I have many 90s but only 2 have 280+ aa
I’m happy with this restriction for 91+
karole,
What in the world are you doing that is only giving “one AA point every 10-12 hours” of gameplay?
Are you killing grey mobs? Are you killing mobs in Kunark overland zones?
I am trying to fathom why it takes more than 30 minutes to get an AA point if you are steadily killing mobs.
The XP Penalty for grouping needs to go away as well.
Tbh if it takes you 10-12 hours to get an AA point the content that you will need to get 91+ for is content you will never see anyway
I do not know what I think of this me and my wife are at 88 close to 200 AP and we where soo looking forward to getting to 90 and be able to group. Now 92 will be the requirement for grouping everything not to many weeks after the GU. Furthermore we do not play the game to mentor down and grind mobs in old dungeons to get AP, secondly all of the “good” grind spots have been removed (of course before we could use them). This will really separate the player base if nothing else have in some time. I would advise to be prepared for this to be removed in the same way that CM needed was changed frequently in DoV, way to many players will hate it.
It makes no sense solo really fast to 90 (it is slower to group) and then you need to do things (grind AP) that noone mentioned when you where on the path that the game set out for you, that is bad game design. I understand the thoughts behind this decision but the solution is bad at this stage of the game.
Well hopefully some guilds will declare to be into casual grouping, from now on casual players will have no reason whatsoever to be in any kind of guild that does not cater to their play style as you will not have any incentive to group with your endgame guildies, and they are probably unlikely, as they are now to go back and do TOFS and similar places with you.
@Sigtyr
Exactly, I agree with you 100 percent.
Also they’re going to strip away my 7 level 90 bonus I had for two years because my characters are no longer ‘max level’ So trying to get to the ‘presteige levels’ will be slowed even more.
It’s completely ridiculous.
The large number of people complaining about this is quickly exposing the real reason why zones such as the drunder heroics were percieved as ‘too hard’.
The backlash boils down to this: “WHAT?!?! You mean to tell me that I can no longer sneak my underexperienced low aa crappy toon into unsuspecting groups and sit back so that they can carry my gimpy ass and give me gear?!?! That’s bullsh!t!!!! How dare you make me be actually usefull!”
Yeah I know, maybe overly harsh. But honestly, the whining has reached an all time low.
@Everyone whining about their low AA and high level : i had 320AA when i was 80…
All i did was play the game and do as many quests i could and play with 100% AA slider untill i had allmost no more quests i could do.
Also i did all the crafter quests and they reward a lot of AA even when you are high level adventurer.
Of course, player locked @ 50/50 cannot reach that much AA at this level but once you are 90, 100% of XP is turned to AA anyway.
Veteran Bonus will be voided out until we get one toon to 92. I don’t think we should have to number crunch just to level up. Leveling XP alone should be enough.
Skyshrine daily solo quest gives amazing exp at current. Even if you remove the 50% bonus that test server gets constantly.
If anything, I would have preferred 300 AA before xp continues, but 20 AA is easy to do in a night.
Each increase in Level & AA cap have those that will rush towards the new cap and others that will not. Regardless there is a different in the time people invest in each character so with this new Level cap those that hadn’t invested the time previously will be gated till they do.
Yes exactly and that is also why this thing will disappear sooner than you can say “overpull”, I challenge everyone to find reasons why this will encourage new players to continue in EQ2 after they have followed the recommended path to 90 and suddenly find themselves blocked (due to no fault of their own). If it somehow became attractive (more current DOV dailies, a functioning Dungeon Finder + a way to teach people to group) for people under 280 AP then it can work. At the moment I only see “leet” players celebrating that they finally will get rid of the “scubs” and that makes me sad.
@Sigtyr: Here’s a list of my “leet” characters and how many AAs they have:
Coercer – 320
Berserker – 247
Assassin – 245
Templar – 196
Troubador – 164
Warlock – 159
That’s right, only one of my characters meets the requirement to level up to 92. And I’m FOR this change. I’m now actively working on AAs for my Zerker so he’ll be able to hit the new zones if needed. Got one last night. 🙂
@Sigtyr, here’s my list.. also for this change.
Reasons for new players (or I) to continue in EQ2 after 90.
1) I have more level 90 content not yet explored.
2) I have friends who I invite to game or in game that need help and I like to group and socialize with. I benefit by AA gain or quest completion or just fun.
3) I might soon “beat” level 90, so I want to get to 91, then 92.
4) I have friends list because I don’t have to play alone, and I want to show them I’m getting better/worse at playing my 10th alt.
5) I have 3+ different characters and play each one depending on the need or what I feel like.
6) My wife is reading the Hunger Games Series and tells me “Leave me alone go play Everquest.”
Some of these apply directly to me some don’t but I like a good challenge including yours. 🙂
I have to laugh at this. I think this is a really good idea. People who think that aa’s are not important need to realize they are class defining. AA = Alternate Advancement. Or in other words another way to level your character. The new zones will be harder and are tweaked for someone who has at least 280 aa.
I sit around to much already and laugh at wizards who only do 1- 2 k DPS because they do not have the aa or the understanding of there class to play the toon properly. At least with this in place people who are 91 and above have at least a minimal standard. And I do mean minimal.
All I hear is omg, I have to actually level my aa. Yes, if you want to be a Useful, Contributing, and Needed member of the group then yea, you need to level your toon up.
It is not that hard. There is so much content out there that it is easy to level up AA. Grind zones are out there if you want to grind, there is a plethera of content at every stage of the game. I have leveled so many toons it is not funny and I can’t even get though all the content without having a load of aa and levels. Even without all the bonuses it is not hard to level a new toon.
Just buckle down and do it and you might realize your toon is a heck of a lot more fun when you have the proper amount of AA’s to back up your character. For anyone that doesn’t realize it, the toon is a lot more fun when you have all your abilities.
“The large number of people complaining about this is quickly exposing the real reason why zones such as the drunder heroics were percieved as ‘too hard’.
The backlash boils down to this: “WHAT?!?! You mean to tell me that I can no longer sneak my underexperienced low aa crappy toon into unsuspecting groups and sit back so that they can carry my gimpy ass and give me gear?!?! That’s bullsh!t!!!! How dare you make me be actually usefull!”
Yeah I know, maybe overly harsh. But honestly, the whining has reached an all time low.”
/applause
@Lexing – Absolutely correct in your summation.
And I do really like this means they can tune that new content to be harder cause they don’t have to worry about some gimp toon being able to do it.
I was quoting StepChylde, I didn’t use the proper formatting. But yeah, the point he or she made was so good it deserved a QFE.
I obviously does not make myself understood here: It is not a question if this is a good thing, if it is motivated or not, personally I do not like it but as people say I am not that far away.
The issue is that it is a disastrous decision from a customer satisfaction point of view, especially for the (hopefully) new people that still are in the process of leveling. Imagine how unhappy people are going to be when they arrive at 90 after following the path and being told “well you have to grind a bit to continue, have fun”.
92 is a destination. Don’t focus so much on that. Enjoy the journey getting there. 🙂
It’s an interesting change. I only have one toon that meets that requirement. My ranger is at 317 AA right now.
Sadly i don’t get to play her that often anymore as i’ve shifted to being main tank for my group so our previous main tank could play a warlock and get over his tanking burnout. My tank only has 210 AA but im in favor of this change as well. I won’t go out and grind AA in zones like some do, i’ll just go back and do all the quests i skipped on the tank since it was an alt.
For all those who’ve been playing since launch and don’t have full AA i’m in the same boat and the only thing i can say is backtrack and find new quests. I started my ranger when the game launched and she’s nearly max AA and i can still find quests in old zones she hasn’t done if i go looking and i don’t grind AA in zones like some do, i find that extremely boring. I don’t think i once in this game have been maxed out, in armor or AA. My rangers 317 is the closest i have come to being stuck only needing armor and such.
Complaint now: “I can’t level to 92 without 280 AAs! It’s not fair!”
Complaint if they cave: “The new content is too hard! It’s not fair!”
Entirely. Predictable.
Sometimes, the things worth having require work to attain.
No participation trophies in Skyshrine.
Also, for all those complaining about the 280 AA “gate” preventing you from reaching level 92, consider this:
1) You will still be able to do the content in Skyrshrine at level 90. You will only receive AA XP for it, but it’s there for you to do. At some point, the devs have to start making solo/overland content for the people who ARE 90/320. If they continue to make max level content accessible to ALL people at that level, it’s too wide a range. AA makes that much of a difference. As Piestro noted, a level 90 with 57 AAs is grossly underpowered compared to one with 300 or more. Now, the content is balanced for a 90/280 character, but I’m sure an exceptionally skilled 90/200 can still complete it.
2) There is ALWAYS something to complain about. For all you “casual players” who complained that crit mit was holding you back in this game — well you got your wish. It’s gone. But now you have an AA gate instead. So get out there, play the game, learn your class. Have some fun. Who says the latest content in the game (read: latest content should also be the furthest along level/AA progression right?) should be accessible to everyone from day 1? You have to earn your right to be there. Now go out and earn it.
I wish they would just let the people that are so upset by this just level to 92 and be unable to spend the points in the prestige tree until 300 AA.
It isn’t an issue to me any alt I have at 90 has 320 AA, and my main will be level 92 in the first day this goes live by raid time, as long as the servers come up and stay up in a reasonable amount of dowtime. I feel an obligation to do it ASAP for the benefit of the raid force.
It is only about 2.6-2.8 Million Exp to go from 90 to 92, it isn’t that hard to do vitality+110% pot+80% vet bonus only took me 2.5 hours on test with the same + a 50% server bonus. Roughly need to kil 2K mobs/encounters to do it.
Surely a better solution is to put this gate onto the Dungeon doors?
A person who only wants to do the quests that are about to be released will not get any XP for them, it will be wasted effort – especially when the levels are so large. It’s a lot of XP that will just disappear.
By all means keep the gate there on the dungeon door, but don’t make people who won’t play a dungeon, or would prefer to grind AA *with* the vet bonus miss out on this chunk of XP that would help them towards level 92.
you misunderstand jay. There is no xp lost. They would just convert to aa to get closer to being able to get to 91. Nothing is lost unless you are already maxed aa and lvl.
For anyone saying that having 280AAs will hurt those that have a bunch of Alts I don’t buy that. I personally have one account 12 toons. Only one toon is at 90 and I only have 275 AAs with him but all of my other toons (lvls 22-62) have at least double their level in AAs. I have a level 25 Troub with 80 AAs.
All you have to do is play the game content. If you want your AAs up a bit faster turn down your XP to 10% drink a 110% potion and earn your AAs pretty fast. Also do the tradeskill quests they give pretty good AAs.
Will you have to have 280 AA to advance past 90 for tradeskilling?
My problem with this is it will probably take me months to get my AA up to snuff, and then I’ll be able to advance, but all the hard work I’ve been doing for the past year to level my toons and get the vet bonus will be for naught. Oh well, I guess.
I have a ton of alts, most of which I solo’d to 90 with. I think all of them never went higher than 10-20% AA along the way, and all of them have at least the minimum AA needed here. It’s not all that big of a deal really. Maybe if someone was on 0% aa just grinding to 90 it may come up as an issue, but those are the same people who are already having issues for having low AA at 90.
Maybe I have missed something here but what is the point to artificial road blocks like this, surely the easiest solution here would have been to let people level to 92 as normal and gain prestige points but require them to have 280AA’s spent to open the prestige line.
In doing this you would have the ability to weed low AA toons out of groups and raids by requiring x amount of prestige points and low AA toons could happily go about levelling up as they have in the past.
If the concern is that the new zones will be too hard for someone without 280AA’s then this cap idea is silly as a level 10 you know you are not going to survive in Velious why should this zone be any different.
Essentially I see no reason for an artificial road block that is really just going to annoy people.
“Essentially I see no reason for an artificial road block that is really just going to annoy people.”
The only people it’s going to annoy are the people who don’t want to put the work in and the people who constantly complain that everything is “too hard”.
@Zharxian: Highly unlikely you’ll need 280AA to advance to lv92 crafting. Sony has always done very well at segregating the crafting side from the adventure side so that a low-level adventurer can be a strong crafter.
@Everyone: No idea if this is transferring over to Live or not, but on Test, I still have my XP bonuses for max level characters, despite that I have no lv92’s. Don’t condemn the loss of your bonuses just quite yet.
Also @Everyone: Many of you are missing a key point. By raising the level cap to 92, Sony can now introduce lv100 mobs. A lv90 player will suffer a terrible resist/miss rate against those mobs and will take some extra damage.
Sony also balanced the new content with 280+AA’s in mind. As has been mentioned, lower AA characters may be able to contribute without instant death, but I’d bargain that the content will be hard enough (see EoW etc) that you really do want a group of 6 solid, geared, prepared players to hope to succeed.
@Dethdlr, this may answer your question above- what can a lv92 character do that a lv90 can’t? Hit a lv100 mob =)
Yesterday was a good day i made two aa points started off with the chrono time zones to get the aa for the name kills which i had never done, then finished off the day with the runneyeye the gathereing which also had never done. Never complained about the cm thing also so peole that people will whine about anything is not true, on that note this is the first thing that i ever got mad about in eq1 or eq2 that they have done. Well maybe other them never fixing the suto follow bug. Bad thing i am running out of exp potions now.
Just checked my Achievements tab, and there are 170 dungeon and 583 raid achievements you can get, and a LOT of them are for old expansions.
Now that you can get free thurgadin armor and soon very good new quest rewards, you can solo or duo almost all of the older content.
So if anyone suggests they’ve done all of these and are still low on aa I’d be very surprised. There is so much content, it’s just not possible!
I wonder if any group has tried Ganafen when maxed out at 92, 320AA and full prestige tree…
I know it’s limited to 6 players now but who knows.
Ganafen was introduced at beginning of the game when players could not reach more than level 50, there was no AA, not crit mit, no…, no… etc…
@ Melpheos
I believe you mean “Nagafen”.
And people have joked about killing him for years. I’m sure people will now try.
Good GOD it is Nagafen.
Please, just please stop it.
I completely agree with this requirement. The people that commented before me gave all the reasons that I want to bring up so there is no point in reiterating them.
I hope SoE doesn’t cave in on this. If they do, they’re going to cave later because content is too hard for the 92s with 100AA.
Beefeater beat me to it I was catching up with whatever more whining was happening over people choosing to lock themselves out of content.
@Karsten – You can hit a level 100 mob at 90, it just takes forever to take the trash that has 200+ million HP’s down.
Also this bunk about losing veteran bonuses as stated it has not gone live on test but I have /bugged it and /feedback, you absolutely should not get a veteran bonus, the bonus clearly states it is for max level characters, don’t have a max level character NO BONUS.
I’m not sure at this point how much more they can do to appease the casual players other than to just give them an “I win” button. They have given free gear, removed the requirement for you to progress into HM Drunder.
The business about the cap-level bonus may be intentional–I recall them saying something about 91+ being ‘prestige levels’, which implies they get treated much differently than 1-90 for many purposes. Doesn’t matter much to me–so I have to work a little harder at it…that didn’t used to be considered a bad thing, you know. Says volumes, little of it good.
IMHO, not only do I like the aa requirement I also think more levels should have some sort of requirement. I’ve never been a huge fan of auto levels.
I think every 5 or 10 levels should require the completion of a quest of some sort to allow you to advance. The later ones (80+) should be heavily skill based. Perhaps a short quest that sends you to a special instance that is class specific that requires you to defeat a special named. Dps classes could be a straight kill, heal classes could be a ‘keep the hero alive’ type, etc etc. Make it challenging enough that you’d need somewhat decent gear/decent spell levels/decent aa/etc and require a fair amount of skill to complete.
The fact that you can powerlevel a toon to 90/320 and never so much as cast a single spell or take a single swipe at a mob has always troubled me.
If they are going to allow us to keep the vet bonus, then I have to put myself on the “this is a good thing,” camp. I have alwasy said AA’s are where your real power comes from, not leveling to 90. My problem is, I level lock and then get impatient after a while and then unlock and the next thing you know, I’m level 80 and might as well head to 90 anyway.
That being said, initially, I wasn’t for this requirement. It does encourage me to be more patient with my lowbies and knock those AA’s out before racing to 90.
They are not going to move the vet cap.
LAST WARNING on bashing the gameplay style of raiders, casuals, soloers, what have you.
The people this will hurt are players like myself. Players that just recently started playing. I started when EQ2 went F2P. I have one level 90 with 176 AAs. Now I have to grind out 100 more AAs before I can enjoy the new content being released in April?
Blows.
Why do people think you need to be 92 to do the new content? I’ve done quite a few of the solo quests and the solo (should be small group) instances and should be easy for a level 90. I’m sure that the full-group content is also doable by a level 90.
I think the point is, level 90 -> 92 will take a long time, and you’ll need every quest you can get. If you start doing Skyshrine content before you have 280AAs, then your XP will go to AAs first.
I really like that these 2 levels take a long time to work through. I hope EQ Next does something similar after the initial level cap of 50 or whatever number the cap is.
There are well over 6,000+ quests in EQ2, I highly doubt anybody with less than 280 AA has finished even half of them.
“There are well over 6,000+ quests in EQ2, I highly doubt anybody with less than 280 AA has finished even half of them.”
A lot of people feel that doing quests is “too hard”.
@Zoophagous
My tank has 210 or thereabouts. I suggest chronomentoring and running old zones for a few AA and quests, if that’s enjoyable to you anyway. I mentored down and ran Obelisk of lost souls last night and pulled two AA from it, and still have a couple quests in it to do.
Really getting AA depends on what people find enjoyable. People can grind, quest or run old zones.
I prefer doing old zones and questing. I’ve always found grinding to be boring. But to each their own.
105 is a good number folx…lets not ruin it 😉
I think this is a good thing…I have 4 (almost 5) 90 toons with 320 AA’s and I only raid on one toon. I found that I get more AA XP when I grind the Double XP weekends with potions vs. raiding. I gained only a few AA points from the raid in approximately a months time (two to three days a week for 2.5 hours per raid). It is crucial for players to be successful in a group setting at lvls 90+ to have maximum AA points. Additionally it can be fun grinding AA points (it is what you make of it). Sometimes running an old zone on a new toon can be a challenge especially if you do it with a group of friends at the appropriate level vs. mentoring down and blasting through a zone. Here is a suggestion for some get one toon to 90-92 with 320 AA points that you enjoy playing win some loot for the alts etc. and work on your alts slowly and level-lock every so often to earn more AA until you progress to the next level so when you do hit 90+ you have the gear and will be successful…rise and repeat and utilize the double XP weekends for AA grinds. There is more content than just the “End Game” content, and new players take the time and enjoy ALL the content that has made this game what it is today. Great adventures to all!!!
Sincerely,
Thaleem (Paladin) 90/320 aka: Oosa (Conjuror) 90/320, Idow (Illusionist) 90/320, Eshee (Ranger) 90/320, Ekaomu (Warden)90/129
I enjoy doing quests 🙂
Finally.
A lot of the “problems” with grouping if stuff like this was implemented. Drunder isn’t hard. You do not need gear from drunder to do drunder. You do need ry’gorr gear, a sizable amount of AAs, a decent understanding of your character/the game as a whole, and a few other players who meet the same requirements.
All lvl 90 characters are not equal. I remember the first time I put drunder group together and I found out that a warlock I recruited was doing 9k dps, my mind was blown. He had no gear, no AAs, and no idea how to play his character. Later that same day, a pally almost transcends words – in fact she had to be told to cast it, at which point she had to look for her book to make sure she had it – a 24% hate transfer which she immediately placed on the inquisitor because “I don’t want the healer gaining aggro”.
So, I think the change is drastically needed. Heck if they chose 300AAs AND a 1k+ quest requirement AND 20 you must have completed XX achievements (kill XX in YY zones or whatever) to ensure that people pass a “fail check” that would be the best thing that happened for the game in a long time.
That doesn’t ensure that people you group with know how to play their characters, but it ensures they can play them well enough to pass that content.
A lot of problems would with grouping [i]would be fixed[/i], if stuff like this was implemented.
I don’t support any change that encourages grinding, so I don’t like this change. I play a mmo for the people, the rpg part is lacking compared to real rpgs. They should triple the experience in current tier(dov, not sf) group zones to encourage people to do those instead of mentoring down and do boring questing, or grinding.
My 2 90’s are currently 90/320, so this change doesn’t affect me. I agree that end game content needs people with at least 280 AA, but forcing people to grind(do generally boring things) seems like a good way to turn people off from the game.
An easy example is eq1, i heard someone mention that they have over 1000 aa in that game. That sounds horrid, not only must that be a mess, but it makes each point worth less.(if you only had 50 points, each point would be worth more to you, then if you had 1000.) It also creates a huge barrier to entry for that game.
I heard someone mention that there are daily quests in skyshine, that award a ton of experience. Hopefully, that’s a step in the right direction to make getting AA a less of grind.
As to taking a longer time to get from 90-92, that’s quite right…
On test it took a couple of hours going to one of the standard grindspots. Tried the content first just to get a feel (like it!!), and then grinded as i wanted to see the prestiges (Like even more!!).
You can bet that debuffs will be used now, as they with prestiges also becomes a buff, at least for bards.
2 thumbs up from me. I think 280 is just about perfect as a requirement to move past 90. Just my personal gut feeling.
I think it makes enormous sense for character level to imply a minimum level of AA.
Also, I have 4 level 90 characters and if you just complete the solo quest lines (not including heroic instances), I have found that with XP/AA set at 50%, you will just about complete the tier’s quests before you out-level the quests and you will have no problem at all maxing out AA.
I started the game at launch day and although I am not really thrilled with the game at this point, I am compelled to admit that they have tuned the AA/XP thing pretty well. This is a very good addition to it.
It’s time to add more information to the player inspect window. 3rd party websites and tools continue to do things better than the game developers.