Alternate Advancement: Good or Bad?

[yaeger]

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

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

Cause some people have reached level 50 on 4 characters and have had nothing to do for the last 6 months while they wait for new content.

AAs are a way to provide new content, without actually adding new content. They're basically the option to gain something measurable from spending 4 hours in a group somewhere.

[Absentia]

I play here because I don't want to grind AA's on EQlive, grind tomes on SoD, or grind emblems in WoW. If you don't like the content given, and are bored, find something else to do. But don't fuck up a good server with AA's and custom content.

[Puyen]

only if there is an AA cap, more so that characters and specialize their class, tank or dps for example. No AA that can totally change the character or add massive change!

[yaeger]

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

I play here because I don't want to grind AA's on EQlive. If you don't like the content given, and are bored, find something else to do.

That's what we're talking about. Introducing AA's that don't directly effect the class's primary purpose.

It'd unbalance the game to introduce AA's that give rogues more damage. But if they were given AAs like SoS, increased illusions, better pickpocketing, better bind wound.

Stuff that will never ever be required, but gives the option to stay on the server and still group once you hit 50.

[Acillatem]

I'm all for AAs as long as you cap them. As people have said numerous times - the way the AA system was on Live - all classes were still the same - it just took longer for some to reach that goal than others.

For example - You can only spend 3 General AAs - It's still going to create some cookie cutter classes, but I think by limiting the number of AAs you CAN have - it will create more diversity than on Live.

Also some would need to be removed - ie Manaburn/Nexus Gate for example.

I mean if you think about it - even with gear - there's still a lot of "cookie cutter" choices out there....GEBS, Staff of the Wheel (Blue Crystal Staff), for WIZ etc....everyone pretty much agrees those are the best in slot. You can't change that.

All AAs would do really is give people capped on levels something to do for a little while longer, just prolonging the "damn I'm bored" part a little longer.

But I think it's worth looking into becuz they were an exciting aspect to the game in many ways.

[guineapig]

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

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 and cleric, sure. You wouldn't want to mess with them too much but:

How about a druid that wants to specialize in healing and buffs for raiding purposes, versus an alt druid that wants to specialize in nuking and dots.
Or a shaman that wants to specialize in melee and general soloing survivability.
Hell even a cleric could specialize in being more deadly versus undead.
I can totally see the charm in being able to make a battle wizard to play around with versus just haveing a raid wizard that stands up, nukes and sits back down.
Lets not forget tradeskill alts or alts that are just made to farm shit. The option to specialize these characters for the purposes they were made for is a boon.

Not every person playing the game plays to raid. And even those that do make alts for fun. The option for variety is not a bad thing. Nobody is forcing a warrior to specialize in DPS versus tanking skills.

It's a hypothetical conversation anyway since we won't ever see AA's on this server. If I were playing on live today and had 7+ years worth of characters however, I would be bummed if every class I rolled up would simply end up like a carbon copy of every other character of that class ever made.

[Reiker]

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

Or a shaman that wants to specialize in melee and general soloing survivability.

A shaman who specialized in melee over anything else would be gimping the fuck out of themselves. If there was say a Tanking/HP type path, and say a DoT path, then EJ-ist threads would pop up parsing which was the better way to go and everyone would just spec the same. Now you have a balancing nightmare on your hands. Certain AAs are just way better than the rest, no one would ever spec in whatever paths did not have the Cannibalization AA.

Hell even a cleric could specialize in being more deadly versus undead.

Lol yeah, Clerics are going to give up the one thing that makes their class awesome so they can offer a little bit more DPS on like 15% of the content in EQ. Sure. And I bet Paladins would have an undead path also and be 10x better than an undead specced cleric.

Everyone knows that in MMOs classes that can do 50% of one thing and 50% of another completely blow compared to classes that focus on only a few main jobs. Look at Druids and Rangers for a good example.

To the AA cap people: All this would do is ensure that x% of the available AAs were never purchased by anyone, ever. X depending on how large the AA cap was.

People seem to think that the original AA system is hardcore gamer-centric, but an "AA specialization system" would cater even more to the spreadsheet parsing minmaxers. At least the current way avoids people choosing a path that seems "fun" and totally fucking their toon up without the player knowing.

[Ridic]

AAs will keep this game afloat after the velious content is done with. But i'm not sure how they'd implement them, since it would make velious raids a joke.

[yaeger]

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

AAs will keep this game afloat after the velious content is done with. But i'm not sure how they'd implement them, since it would make velious raids a joke.

Do you guys even read the posts that other people put up?

If we implemented the same AAs that were used in live where they would add to a class's damage, survivability, or utility then YES. It would make previous content a joke.

However, why not add custom AAs that do none of these? Rather than Rogue AAs increasing Rogue damage, allow the Rogue to accumulate AAs that reduce exp loss on death, good consumption, illusion duration, and underwater breath duration.

Those were just some examples, but I'd like to see custom AAs that bring back a reason to play the class (any class) once you hit 50.

[Ridic]

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

Do you guys even read the posts that other people put up?

If we implemented the same AAs that were used in live where they would add to a class's damage, survivability, or utility then YES. It would make previous content a joke.

However, why not add custom AAs that do none of these? Rather than Rogue AAs increasing Rogue damage, allow the Rogue to accumulate AAs that reduce exp loss on death, good consumption, illusion duration, and underwater breath duration.

Those were just some examples, but I'd like to see custom AAs that bring back a reason to play the class (any class) once you hit 50.

I just read the OP and posted. You're mad if you think i'm going to read anymore then that... what do you think I am. . . smart of something? srsly.

custom AAs will take a lot of work+will cause more problems then what they are worth, imo. Bad idea.