Changes to AA Experience

Earlier this week EverQuest Designer Nodyin made a post on SOE's forums about upcoming changes to the way AA experience is gained:

One of the most common topics of discussion on these boards has to do with AAs - gaining them, using them and how many you "need" to be viable in a group or raid setting. As time passes and expansions are released the total number of AAs that are available to each class grows, as does the number of AAs that are considered "core" by each class. Anyone who has played EverQuest for very long can realize how important a few hundred well-spent AA can be for any player of sufficient level. As great as the AA system is, however, it presents an ever growing barrier to new players or current players who might like to try a new class for a different experience or perspective. The hill, to put it simply, is simply too high to climb for many people.
 
To address this we're going to introduce the same type of experience scaling in the AA system that exists with levels. Just like level 1 is a lot easier to get than level 80 is we're going to change how AA experience works so that the first AAs you earn will come faster than the last AA you earn to reach the cap. This change should make it a lot easier for players climbing the levels to gain key AAs and advance to the point that they can interact with friends (new or old) that have more established characters.
 
What we've done is put together a very flexible, data-driven system that we can adjust as expansions are released or in response to changing circumstances. The way the system works is that we'll be able to create point ranges (with a minimum number of AAs earned and a maximum number) that will have a multiplier assigned to it. So you'll get the amount of experience you would have gotten prior to this change, but then that experience is increased by this multiplier.
 
So for AA #XYZ your multiplier might be 2.0. Before the change you would have gotten 500 experience. After the change it would be 500 x 2, or 1000 experience. Simple, right?
 
The higher you go in AA totals the lower the multiplier will be until eventually it will reach the 1.0 mark and AA experience will return to "normal". AA experience is already normalized by level to be equal to the same number of even-con kills no matter what your level is and this system will work with that. No matter where you are in terms of level you'll see the same bonus based on your AA count.
 
Based on the data we collected a few months ago and looking at where we're putting the 1.0 mark the vast majority of players will see a boost in the rate that they earn AAs with those at the low end of the AA count seeing the largest boost. As I mentioned above we're able to nimbly change the shape of the curve and as we release new expansions that push forward the total number of AAs that exist we will be changing the shape of the curve, including the point where AA experience returns to normal. So we'll be attempting to continue to support new players and returning veterans going forward with the AA system.

Comments

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# Feb 19 2008 at 12:35 PM Rating: Decent
1 post
i think this is a good idea if say the bonus stops at like 1500ish aa's then goes back to normal the game i feel will be bettered for it , i have been around for 5 years and dont really care if someone thats been here for 1 year has the same amount of aa's me ( hopefully he spent them wisely) .
has for ubar raiding guilds they really make up like 20% of the game players
and some require totaly stupid things of there members ( most of us 80%ers work for a living) now before you start bashing i have been in a raiding guild before ( been there done that got the bazu stone) and i have earned every flag and aa i have . it wouldnt effect me one bit if sony gave everybody 1000 aa's
it wouldnt effect my game paly one bit.... i mean really does it matter every time sony changes somthing the fourms are full of this whinning . go get aa job, life whatever and get over it ...... well got to pay the bills laters.....
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# Mar 01 2008 at 11:21 AM Rating: Default
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97 posts
thanks for stating my thoughts... "it doesn't affect my gameplay"

Whether I agree or disagree with sony really doesnt matter...sure I think they should spend alot more money on revamping thier advertising and maybe throw out some new campaigns making an old game look and smell new. They forget, but alot of the WoW people are getting bored with content too. sheesh... that all EQ has now days....content... you could fill a house with the content.

So much so that sometimes when you log on dont you need a good 10-20 mins to figure out what to do for that particular session?.. When people in EQ say they are bored, most of the time they are only bored because theyve been weighing all the different directions they can go in. Name a SINGLE aspect of EQ, one single area..like trades or quests..or raiding... or chatting.. or the cardgame, or farming, or faction grinding, or countless other.... and you can find yourself hours deep in subsets of content...
EQ is fun...if it were perfect it would be overcrowded....

If you feel the need to flame me then feel free... just dont be ignorant about it.
____________________________
-- Don't confuse kindness with weakness, nor ignorance with the inability to learn --

Charka Darkmajik
75th Iksar Necromancer
Defying Fate of Povar
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