Alternate Advancement: Good or Bad?

[Omnimorph]

Skill trees in diablo 2 i thought were fantastic. I understand that given there were only like 7 classes you had different branches of them, but this meant it was possible to have 2 different sorcerers or w/e useful for completely different things.

AA's became quite ridiculous with time, a new expansion meant a stupid amount of aa's necessary to grind. And it was a grind too. Some were fun, self stasis, BDB etc (chanter aa's) but grinding 5aa's to get +1 mana regen when i'm already regenning 150 mana a tick already? that's just pointless.

[Hiragawa]

AA's were good up to a point. The first few Expansions that added them, added some very nice things but they weren't going crazy. But after awhile it got out of control and they started adding aa's that were just... yeah.

[Mendrik]

The only form I would like AAs to be is, as someone posted earlier in this thread, if they were specifically designed for p99 and would offer customization. No EQ AAs please.

[Excision Rottun]

Originally Posted by Sparkin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The biggest mistake they made with AA's though was always the ability for old / new players to catch up. There needed to be a system to help them do it a much faster manner. I guess maybe they did some things to help with that eventually? but only after it was too late.

On Live now it is either your first 700 or 1000 AA are on a curve with an XP multiplier.

Where at first they come super fast and by the time you hit 700 or 1000 (whatever it is), the modifier scales down to 1.0

[Malrubius]

We all know that they will never be on this server. Nor should they. /thread

[Branaddar]

It's a multi-step scale for the AAs. I think 250 then 500 then 1000 have varying degrees of speed.

Anyway, I tend to agree that the first few expansions of AAs were decent. But going back to EQLive recently and looking through the thousands upon thousands of AAs I "need" to be an efficient monk... no thanks.

It's part of the reason I just can't get into EQLive anymore. Knowing that even when I hit the next level cap, there's still 1000+ more AA I need to earn in order to be on par with the people that didn't quit playing.

I was glad to have CA/CS 8, now it goes up to 25 or something ridiculous.

I'm not sure I like the idea of having "specs" in EQ. A monk is a monk is a monk. I shouldn't have to "spec" to be a good raid puller at the cost of being shitty DPS.

It's going to cause issues if there's no ability to respend points. A lot of people are going to spend on whatever makes them get XP and loot faster primarily, and then they want to raid and either guilds will deny them for being the wrong spec, or they'll be crappy at raids because of their spec.

Obviously not an issue for healers or DPS classes necessarily, but any of the multi-function classes will suffer from a need to specialize in one function. Bards, monks and enchanters come heavily to mind as classes that would suffer from further specialization.

The more I think about it, the more I think AAs could really hurt this server. Yes, there is a need to "do something" when we're capped and there's no more raid content coming. But I don't think grinding 5000 AA is the answer.

I like EZServer's RoA/Prestige system, where after you cap you can reset to level 1 and each time you do, you get an upgrade to a ring. But I'm not sure that would work well here. Guilds will rely on their raid members, and having people leveling from scratch all the time would just kill the ability to perform at raids.

Perhaps XP gained after your cap goes towards... something. An evolving item of sorts, or some form of earned points to be spent on low- to mid-grade raid equipment for the people that don't want to raid here, or to avoid the need to farm Halls of Testing for a month just to get half your guild 2 pieces of gear each. I dunno, just throwing ideas around.

I'd like to see this server remain as classic as possible, but without growing stagnant at the same time.

[Taluvill]

The whole "what should we do after velious" question has ping ponged around the forums here more than anyone will ever know. Some have suggested aa's some have suggested custom content, some have even suggested a complete rollback.

I think it's only fair to give it a wait and see approach, tbh. Any solution that is discussed by anyone, with any developer input, will either lose or gain players by them knowing whats going to come at the end of the road.

[Branaddar]

No doubt, Talu. I think it's fair to say the devs shouldn't announce anything until the situation arises. As you said, it'll do no benefit.

It's still fun to brainstorm a bit, though. Maybe give them some ideas.

Rollback is a decent idea. Would just suck to come into the server close to the rollback :P

[YendorLootmonkey]

Originally Posted by Branaddar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Rollback is a decent idea. Would just suck to come into the server close to the rollback :P

If rollback is a possibility, I would like to know up front before I invest my time any further in my characters. I mean, investing my time in a bunch of digital trinkets on a Emu server is foolish enough, but investing my time in the same knowing for a fact that they day will come where it's wiped clean... I could be spending this time getting laid. Or perhaps something slightly more realistic. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Senadin]

Originally Posted by YendorLootmonkey [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If rollback is a possibility, I would like to know up front before I invest my time any further in my characters. I mean, investing my time in a bunch of digital trinkets on a Emu server is foolish enough, but investing my time in the same knowing for a fact that they day will come where it's wiped clean... I could be spending this time getting laid. Or perhaps something slightly more realistic. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yup, i definitely wouldnt be a happy camper to be rolled back in 2 years... or so.