Intended Audience for Character Advancement Templates

So a number of players have been raising Cain about various deficiencies and choices made in the “off the shelf” Character Advancement Templates which will be available to players after Game Update 67 goes live.

I’ve always believed that players who are interested in trying out different AA specs could avail themselves of Beetny’s AA Calculator to try out different patterns, as well as looking up known characters on either EQ2U or Dragon’s Armory. This leaves players who might not read EQ2Wire (the horror!), might not read the EQ2 forums, and may not be familiar with addon websites like ours. This would of course apply to new players who might be overwhelmed when greeted with six pages of over 100 AA choices.

From Caith on the EQ2 Forums:

The Server templates are…specifically set up for new characters, and more specifically for new players. I tried to design them to avoid adding complexity, while still performing their role. They are designed to add a respectable setup while leveling.

What the server templates are not designed for: Replacing player built AA specs. Every character plays a bit different, even two otherwise identical characters are going to spec a little differently, or use a slightly different cast order for any number of reasons.

And of course, trying to make these top end specs would require constant revisions to stay current. I do not want to be changing these specs often once they are live, as that would be changing specs that players may be currently using.

I’m certainly not going to be offended by any comments on the templates, and if anyone has any further feedback on them I would love to hear it so I can go over it. Beta has all of the current builds based off of some of the previous feedback which identified some fairly significant flaws, such as tanks not picking up Body and Mind in the Heroic tree for their group template!