New AAs appearing already - new numbers now appearing

[Kianor]

Ancient: Wilslik's Mending, level 70. Heals 2716 hp for 723 mana.

Ahnkaul's Mending, level 73. Heals 2788 hp for 742 mana.
Ahnkaul's Mending Rk. II. Heals 2887 hp for 768 mana.
Ahnkaul's Mending Rk. III. Heals 2985 hp for 794 mana.

A level 70 focus will degrade by 10% per level. So, on a level 73 spell, a 50% level 70 focus will be 35%.

With that 50% level 70 focus , A:WM will land for average 3395. (base * 1.25).
AM rk.1 will land for average 3276 (base * 1.175)
AM rk.2 will land for average 3392
AM rk.3 will land for average 3507

So, rank 2 won't heal for as much as the old level 70 spell. You need rank 3 for that. And if you're in an anguish level guild that can get the old ancient, but not capable of getting TSS runes for rank 3 spells, you will be better off with the old heal. Plus, not only will it heal for more, it will cast faster and cost less mana if all your focus effects are level 70 based.

I know that's a single spell, and possibly not a good example because it's an ancient one that was an upgrade over our basic heal. But lots more guilds are capable of getting level 70 ancients than are capable of getting rank 3 TSS spells.

And while I agree that melees are more gear dependant than casters, melees don't have to worry about getting gear upgrades simply to make their focus effects work on their new spells as well as they did on their old ones.

But the whole point of this was, if the level cap is raised again so soon, I for one will be rather irritated. I have just started to make inroads into getting level 75 focus effects and I don't want to have to plan it all out again. I'm not saying I'll quit if the level cap raises, but I can see how other people might be tempted to do so. I can't believe they'd raise the cap only a year after the last raise, though.

[Shamylamy]

Yeah, if they are going to start bumping up level caps all the time they will really need to re-evaluate the focus effect system, at least for higher levels. They could make the degradation of the focuses lowered to 5% per level or less possibly to at least alleviate some of the problem.

[Ughbash]

Kianor,

Not goign to fault your math, I stated in my case I had lousy focuses so for me it was an immediate upgrade. I had a 25% focus rather then a 50 percent. For a little I kept the 70 spell in my line up but decided I would rather get the proc for casting up to 75 spells free rather then up to 70.

You are also correct that a guidl breaking into Anguish now probably can't get rank 3 runes.

But anguish is what 5 expansions old? Do we want to base our gear off 5 year old content?
Anguish raiders were the oens who got the WORST case on the spell.
If the person had Demi or Deathknell focuses those went to 72 rather then 70.
They can get single group 30 or 35 focuses in TSS that go to 75.

AS I said for ME it worked out well to just go to the 73 spell (I have rank 2 now).
For anyone who was not raiding Anguish or higher the level 73 spell was a nice upgrade.

For ALL shaman leveling to 75 and getting a full spellbook helped even if their focuses did not keep up at all levels.

The people who probably benefitted most were the "Hardcore Non-raiders".




EDIT: MY personal thought is it would be ebst to do away with levle limits completely and jsut in alter expansions increase focus strength, but I don't believe they will ever do that.

[Kianor]

For ANY level 70 heal focus, the new spell would have needed rank 3 to be better than the old ancient spell. 50% was just an example, but the scaling is equivalent, the numbers change but the relative values don't.

My guild were in Demiplane when TSS came out, and had finished with Anguish, but I still only had the Anguish focus at that time.

For a level 72 focus, the ancient spell is still better than rank 1 but rank 2 becmes the "break even" point. Even guilds who were in Demiplane/Deathknell and weren't too far behind would have 72 focus at best.

But it's still my point that having a full set of effective focus effects, even if not the absolute best ones, then gaining 5 levels and having your foci not work for full is a bit depressing.

[Ughbash]

[Tugela]

[Unmei]

[Tugela]

It's "hapless server", not "hapless guild". Our numbers are actually pretty decent atm, due to the deaths of other guilds, our main problem is a shortage of main healers.

Most players who actively play the game have probably allready explored all they can of the current content. Increasing levels doesnt decrease what they can do, it increases it since they would be able to do things that previously they couldn't.

Games are meant to be entertainment, and to remain vibrant new avenues need to be constantly opened to provide that entertaiment. That could be new zones, but it could also be making old zones more accessible to those who previously couldnt do that content. Not having a level increase means that the previously unaccessible content remains that way.

You also need to keep in mind that as game population decreases over time, the subscription base also decreases, which in turn means that there are fewer financial resources available at SoE to pay for developing new zones. The cheap way to add content for most people is simply to increase levels. Ultimately the game population and finances are going to determine when a level increase happens, not player ideas about timing intervals (which are inaccurate anyway, since people look at intervals between numbers of expansions rather than the chronological time between level raises). Btw, that is getting shorter each time - following the chronological trend, the next level increase should be around a year after the last (ie at the end of the year), the one after that will likely be 6 months, then the game implodes

[Draglin Stoneshield]

[Tugela]

[Draglin Stoneshield]

[Tugela]

A bit is not the same as what you get with a level increase, and that is the sort of thing AAs have been of late. While some are useful, they are situational at best. They can't keep increasing scaleable AA abilities because the effects carry forward and increase exponentially when you do get a level increase sometime in the future.

Most AAs in the future are likely to be of the sort where canni gets upgraded to canniX1.2 for example, because that is a non-scaleable effect. Scaling effects like healing adept can only be taken so far before they make future level increases problematic. The power increase that comes from a level increase on the other hand is different because allthough it is scaleable, it is bounded by mob parameters. Consequently that sort of power increase is friendly to future expansions where a level increase is used to re-focus the spread of player capabilities. The AA route is not.

If you are observant you would note that those sorts of non-scaleable AAs need to be increased when there is a level increase in order to keep pace. And, as it so happens, those are the very AAs which apparently are being increased, at least for shaman, I'm not sure what other classes are getting.

I'm curious though - why are people vehemently opposed to a level increase but don't have a problem with AAs, when both involve grinding?

[Tugela]

[WaringMcMarrin]

[Catmandew]

[Draglin Stoneshield]

[Baki]

Taken from the Producer's Letter

In this Producer letter I am proud to announce that we're changing our tactics so we can accomplish what we have set out to do and do it with the quality we know we can deliver. Our next expansion will be released in November. This will give us more time to polish the game content and features. I am also happy to announce that November will be the month for all future expansion releases as well. We realize that many players want more content but would like to be able to play through the last expansion before feeling like they are falling behind when a new one comes out. Our goal is to focus on the overall quality and let the players have time to enjoy the great work that we put into each release.

Look like just 1 a year now.



Full letter

Producer’s Letter – April 30, 2007


I wanted to say, "Thank You" to all of the players who had so much fun on April 1st. We threw in the new player models and had a great time putting it together for everyone to have fun with. It was a fun joke and something that many players will remember for quite some time. I can say that we did learn a lesson though; giving the players an option to disable such a feature will be included in the future. With that being said, I continue to get IM's about adding a stick figure spell which makes me laugh each time.

I have been paying quite a bit of attention to the Customer Support team as well. I know that many of the players feel that the CS team doesn't always communicate to the development team. It may not be obvious that the communication is actually constant and collaborative. I am working with the CS team and our Community team to better communicate to the players the reporting and fixing of CS related issues. The development team fixes multiple bugs each week that have been sent to us from CS and the players should know that we are listening and reacting to make your game play experience better each day. Look for new callouts of CS related fixes and make sure you submit game play issues to the CS reps. Many of the players assume that "someone" else has submitted the problem. Trust me the more reports the better!

Our team is hard at work on addressing Live game issues and working on discussing future expansions and plans. Along with the normal meetings that we have every week, we also have two meetings each year to discuss the future plans for EverQuest and create goals based on community feedback and team desires. In our last meeting the mood was different. We had a renewed passion for the game and were proposing big, exciting ideas that we didn't want to compromise on due to dates. We presented our ideas and new vision and received 100% support.

In this Producer letter I am proud to announce that we're changing our tactics so we can accomplish what we have set out to do and do it with the quality we know we can deliver. Our next expansion will be released in November. This will give us more time to polish the game content and features. I am also happy to announce that November will be the month for all future expansion releases as well. We realize that many players want more content but would like to be able to play through the last expansion before feeling like they are falling behind when a new one comes out. Our goal is to focus on the overall quality and let the players have time to enjoy the great work that we put into each release.

This is absolutely great news for our team and for our players as well. I look forward to giving everyone an inside look of the development of the next expansion so you can see the hard work going into the release.

Clint "Jourdian" Worley
EverQuest Producer
Sony Online Entertainment

[Kianor]

I still think a level rise is unlikely this year. If they're increasing AA power, that's just what they always do when they bring out a new set of AAs anyway, minor improvements on existing AAs and maybe a new idea or two... that's standard, whether or not they increase levels.

[Tugela]

[jdthomas]

[Tugela]

[WaringMcMarrin]

[Finori]

[ThraallFV]

[Unmei]

Wow. It like they're actively -trying- to drive me out of the game.

[Kianor]

[Unmei]

[Finori]

[Brohg]

[Galelor]

[Unmei]

[Tugela]

[Tugela]

[Beafly]

[Brohg]

[Unmei]

[Beafly]

[Tugela]

Well, one way to do that would be to create two progression paths, one through raids, the other through group content, with the provision that they are mutually exclusive. Both would be equally difficult, but if you progress through raids you would not be able to through group content and visa versa. That would allow the so called "casuals" to put their actions where their mouth is, and if they are as good as they claim they are they could prove it. And not by some micky mouse mechanism of grinding out some trivial task X times, but by doing a series of increasingly difficult set of progressive tasks along the lines of old school IK trials. Raiders could do the same tasks if they desired, but they wouldnt get progression for it, similarly groupers could do raid content but not get credit for it. Doing things that way you could tie progression to leveling, and levels would reflect your achievements. Someone who didnt or couldn't progress would be stuck at say 76, while folk at 77, 78, 79 and 80 would be at differing tiers of progression. 77 could be easy, 78 moderately difficult, 79 difficult and 80 very difficult (ie only the best of the best).

[WaringMcMarrin]

[Beafly]

Waring, you would have to offer two distinct progression paths. One obtained via raiding, one via grouping. The way I see it, you could be at differing levels of progression in either path, but the first you complete would allow you access to the next level. I'm not saying that raiders should get any advantage. I'm saying that the reward (Level 80) should be available both ways.

Possible Implementation (I'm sure someone else can be more creative)
Level 76 could be open.
Level 77 could only be obtained after completing a slipgear type quest, introducing you to all of the new zones (with a gear-type reward also).
Level 78 could only be obtained by mission arcs introducing you to the lore of the expansion (with their own gear rewards ala DoD).
Level 79 could only be obtained by either extended mission arcs (gear rewards ala DoD) OR a series of 24-man instanced raids (raid-loots) and BOTH open up the end-of-expansion exp zone.
Level 80 could only be obtained by either a series of progressively more challenging single group quests embedded in that zone (with very nice gear rewards) OR defeating the end-of-expansion raid content (raid-loot).

That would give your guild a choice... If your guild wanted to backflag folks to level 80 via raiding they could, or they could just tell new applicants to go take care of it themselves in a group format. But both would be a significant achievement versus the result of the grind.

I don't understand the aversion to tying levels to flagging. It's no different than any other quest in the game. You go through some level of agony to receive reward. Today the agony for levels is the "grind". In my opinion, and it seems others agree, that isn't sufficient anymore. Make me work for it in other ways too. Run me through a quest of some significance in order to be the same level as Quarm. Make it an achievment!