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 21 2008 at 11:17 AM Rating: Default
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532 posts
"Hey, its a free country man."

Shut the hell up idiot. It's an online game with its own rules that YOU happen to agree with. Don't throw around your hippy BS because it happens to follow your own stupid agenda. The fact is that they are continually f**king up EQ beyond the point at which I stopped playing. I couldn't take the fact that they were slowed murdering every old zone with their idiot graphics, if I was still there for this crap now giving people free exp for nothing I definately would have been gone.

This game is for sure not run by one person who is still in power that made the original game. There is no lingering talent that knows how to keep this game inline with what assuredly 200k+ people who have left want that have played for years. It's just a game to raid, **** around meaninglessly, then raid some more and ALL raid items are devalued constantly by the fact that any guild anywhere can get any item they want just by getting the notion to raid. There are no spawn times to keep track of now, no skill at getting assembled at a moment's notice to take down a wandering boss in a real static zone, the best you can hope for is the time it takes for the idiot instance timers to let you in again.
All you do is raid for the sake of raiding and you're not even progressing your character because there is NOTHING to do with your character after the raid except go get more items to raid again. I cannot wait to see the last EQ server die...

Codeguru
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# Mar 01 2008 at 11:06 AM Rating: Default
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97 posts
Yeah.. i think Ill agree with K on this one.. all the posts are about the game.. but you come in and flame someone because of thier opinion... thats pretty sad bro.

Edited, Mar 1st 2008 2:22pm by jagweir
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# Feb 26 2008 at 11:14 AM Rating: Decent
Scholar
19 posts
Codeguru, you've shown yourself as the idiot and with an attitude like yours, EQ is a better place without you. Thank you for leaving.

Everquest has always been about change and flux. People complain when developers don't do enough, then they complain when they do too much. The added experience bonus for AAs will make allot of people happy. The only ones that seem to be unhappy are the people that already HAVE those AAs. It's a game... Getting those AAs was supposed to be FUN. If you didn't have fun getting them, then why did you do it? If anything, feel bad for the people that will miss out on all the FUN of getting those AAs the way you did instead of complaining.
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# Feb 29 2008 at 12:45 PM Rating: Excellent
New graphics on old zones is an attempt to spruce things up a bit like redecorating your house. Everyone gets a replacement for their old car, and even if you get the same make/model it will still be a different car in some ways.

The change to make a lot of guild progression raid events be instanced, was well thought out and even though some events are "at a moments notice", it is soooo much nicer to have a scheduled time each day we raid where we can plan on an event ahead of time, talk about the event, gather and go do that event when we are ready. Years ago, the guilds that could 'control' a spawn could prevent other guilds from progressing and it became a huge source of frustration. Do you remember all the tiff about (Velious) TOV mobs? especially NTOV. Huge arguments back in the day.
I rather like that a guild doesnt have to always do things on a moments notice but can plan when to have fun without interference from griefers and know that you are not missing out on some big event just because you were not on when that 'moments notice' was sent out.

If 200k ppl left it was because they lost interest, lost play time ability, or found something in all the other new online games that was more to their taste. If you want to talk about ppl leaving, then talk about Star Wars Galaxies. Those devs actually deleted ppl's classes and made repeated huge huge changes in basic game mechanics and literally 'forced' players to quit who actually wanted to stay and play. Here in EQ the devs are working with ppl and working to keep the eq world alive and kicking.

True some ppl raid for the sake of raiding, but who are we to say there is something inherently wrong with that? There are sooo many group quests out there, and many are required for a guild to advance, that literally no one is allowed to 'only' raid. With the new tradeskills with the SOF expansion, ppl can gear up with great stuff without ever raiding at all. A lot of ppl are doing tradeskills judging by how fast the ore and stuff sells on my trader. Many of the lvl 65 drops from Dragonscale Hills are very common in bazaar for very few plat.
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