Alternate Advancement: Good or Bad?

[odizzido]

What I like about AAs is that, for me at least, I can level forever with them.

I like leveling my necro, but right now he is capped in 50 and so unless I raid there is nothing I can really do on him even though I want to play him. And raiding isn't really the same thing as xping for me.

The main reason I am looking forward to kunark so much is because it will allow me to level my necro again.

[Randiesel]

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

I used to have no issues with leveling or XPing or whatever, but after AA made it a necessity I lost all interest in it. You used to have to grind out 10 levels and then relax as you raided & just killed shit. But, when it became expected to be on 16 hours a day, 8 doing AA and 8 raiding, it got old...fast.

The bright side of it all that this is *just* an emu server.

Not that it isn't grand; I'm actually having way more fun here than i did in live, but I don't think we're going to have super strict guilds. Maybe we already do and I don't realize it because I'm only lvl 14, but people here have less vested. We aren't paying for it, you can't ebay your character (and if you did I think theres a much higher risk of it getting banned), etc.

I'm in favor of an AA system, I'm also in favor of finding a way to add more content, whether its going beyond SoV, or its some hybrid of old/new content like another thread suggested (adding the PoP zones off of existing zones and eliminating PoK? sounds good here), we're going to need something eventually, otherwise the high end will die out.

[guineapig]

I like the concept of AA's after a couple expansions and a level cap increase. It seems like natural progression in a game without having to keep increasing the level cap, but still being able to make new content more difficult (thereby requiring that AA's be invested in).

What I don't like is having no limit, or an insanely high limit on AA's where by you are essentially forcing a player to spend every chance they have playing the same character for fear of falling behind the curve.

There is nothing wrong with having a reachable goal for an expansion like say (15-20 AA max per expansion.) Not only would this allow players to spend time playing other classes instead of mindlessly grinding exp. But it would also promote versatility within the classes. If you can only choose 15 out of 50 possibly AA points then your enchanter might end up much different from another enchanter.

Specialization is a great feature in any game.

[Kender]

problem with aa's is they were introduced in luclin

if you brought them in any earlier they would trivialise the velious content. (the velious expansaion trivialised kunark content). prime example is in the halls of testing in ToV. monks had to really work hard to pull deep in that wing. with run 3 and reduced FD cooldown it would be too easy.

[krforrester]

I just want Run 3, pet hold and suspend minion.

[Reiker]

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

Specialization is a great feature in any game.

I posted about this in another AA thread, but I'll reiterate how specialization is a really bad idea in any MMO. Unless you offer like 3-4 classes at creation, any sort of "specialization" should end at character creation once you choose a class. Take a look at EverQuest, 15 classes when AAs were introduced. How could AAs possibly have offered specialization at this point in the game?

Warrior - Specializations would basically be for tanking or dps. Why would anyone choose the dps specialization over the tanking? Those people would have clicked something like Rogue or Monk at character creation.

Cleric - Who would spec in anything other than healing? What else could you spec in, uh, nuking? Anyone who wanted to spec in nuking were already "specced" when they clicked Wizard.

And so on.

The ONLY MMO that really did this correctly was DAOC, and was designed with class specializations from the ground up. This still had issues since one-dimensional classes such as Skald, Paladin, etc basically used the same cookie-cutter spec since there wasn't a lot of wiggle room. To make this successful Mythic basically made a list of abilities and randomly distributed them to classes. For example the main healers all had a heal and a buff line among all three realms. But Druids could spec in a pet, Clerics could spec in Smite (nuking), and Healers could spec in Pacification (CC). There were very specific circumstances that actually made this work, one being the PvP focus of the game and the three realm and large amount of classes between all three. And it still had issues (people creating buff bots since no one wanted to actually main a char specced in buffs for example).

WoW's talent system is so fucked. You have classes like Rogues that can spec in DPS, DPS, or DPS and then a class like Druid that can spec in Melee DPS/Tanking, Healing, and Nuking. Their entire class system is fucked pretty much beyond repair because of the spec trees.

AAs are pretty awesome in execution. The large amount of time required to max AAs really reinforced EQ's hardcore spend more time to become more powerful philosophy. And technically there's a specialization element depending on which AAs you prioritize over others, but you never actually are forced to permanently change the functionality of your class, which is essential.

Hopefully this is legible I'm pretty hung over and can't really concentrate anymore.

[yaeger]

I'm all for custom AA's. Mostly AA's that do not directly improve your class.

AA's like reduced food consumption, increased illusion length, buff time extensions (recieved not casted) are what should be introduced. Things that don't directly effect the class, but add to it.

I agree that if they were added before luclin they'd create massive balance problems if tanks got more avoidance, dps got more dps, and healers could churn out massive heal numbers.

It'd also give us something to do besides rolling new alts once we hit 50.

[Reiker]

A large amount of stock AAs still don't work on emu, good luck on seeing custom.

AA's like reduced food consumption

You mean the General tab AA Innate Metabolism?

[Absentia]

Why are people constantly wanting to fucking change the game as it is?

[yaeger]

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

You mean the General tab AA Innate Metabolism?

Yes. A mix and match approach. Keep the ones that will work, toss the others out, bring in new ones.