Ok, we're allowed ONE thread about 200 Sense Heading.

[Traska]

I am a skill hound.

I *love* skill-up. My 45th warrior has all of her weapon skills maxed out... since 43! (With the exception of archery, which is at 181, but she's not bow-kiting... I'm dedicated, not crazy). So for me, I loved the announcement that it hit 200. On my druid, my warrior, my shaman, my rogue... heck, *everyone* 39 and higher had the rock-steady compass.

To say I feel cheapened is a touch of an understatement. No, I don't SOE for this. But I *do* think this was an ill-thought out move, rivaled only by letting Frogloks wear *anyone*'s cultural stuf (seriously... they get access to more cultural gear than half-elves....)

(A side-note, here... my "ill-thought out" comment is *not* an attack... we all do boneheaded things, often meaning well. They thought they were doing the right thing, and for that I respect them. I just disagree, strongly but respectfully.)

And the dwarves... won't SOMEBODY think about the poor dwarves? =)

[Lilosh]

Absor was kind enough to grace a thread (on this topic) on The Newbie Zone with his presence, and he too can't see why people are so upset.

I replied with the following:

It was changed because most people were mapping into their Arrow keys, and getting a better Direction Sense as they walked around.

How is that different from people who get channeling skillups whenever they cast a spell, or people who get Weapon skillups whenever they hit a single "Autoattack" button?

It's all the same concept. Is it any more fun to be a newbie, and not be able to cast a spell through a single hit?

I'm sorry, but the "it's just mashing a button" argument doesn't hold water. ALL of Everquest is pressing buttons. I don't physically beat Monsters, or Cast spells. I just "Randomly mash the hotkeys". :-)


I probably devoted more time to my sense heading skill, though, then I did to my PoJ Trials. People with 200 sense heading, pre-patch, should have gotten a charm, or something. *evil grin*.

-Lilosh

[Grenoble]

Originally posted by Ngreth Thergn
Ngreth Stink?

I would never say that! How would I dare, considering I live on fetid bass???

[Nihixul]

I hate hate hated this change. It was TOTALLY unnecessary. Anyone who gets to any moderate level in EQ has already learned how to map this to their movement keys for quick learning. No, it isn't going to change the game in any large way, but it further enforces the belief that too many players now have anyways that things are supposed to be made easy FOR them. SH was absolutely trivial to skill up in. If you didn't have it, you could look at your change in /loc or look at the map (in those places that have them).

Perhaps there are those that would use these arguments FOR the change, saying that the barrier involved in SH was already trivialized by the /loc command and maps. I would disagree, because you at least had to learn to do those things (north increases first /loc component; west increases second). So many people in EQ don't even know how to use /loc as it is.

As trivial as the skill was, with the maps it had an even stronger result: at 200 you got the arrow on your map. No movement or zooming in necessary! A nice little perk for those who took the minimal effort (over many levels) to increase their skill.

I admit it, though, this is all a front. Ya wanna know why I am *really* mad? My trusty lightcrawler antenna is now useless.

Ya know what they REALLY needed to trivialize/max at lvl 0? Apply poison. :P

ps - nice changes to the lemming fur backpack though!

[Nihixul]

Forgot to mention: it really would have been a bit more tolerable had they just dropped the skill altogether, although I understand why that would have been... uhm... quite hard.

I should also mention that I have been pleased with a couple of the recent changes for newbies. I do think giving them a bag was a wee bit much (starting your newbie quests usually results in a container anyhow), and the auto hot button assignments nearly got me killed within a second of creation, but overall there have been some nice ones. I think this was just meant to be one of those. It certainly helps, but I just think it was ill-conceived. *shrug*

*wiggles so house ogre no eat him*

[kiztent]

Originally posted by Nihixul
As trivial as the skill was, with the maps it had an even stronger result: at 200 you got the arrow on your map. No movement or zooming in necessary! A nice little perk for those who took the minimal effort (over many levels) to increase their skill.

You didn't get the arrow at 200 skill. That is, it didn't change to an arrow when your skill hit 200. It already was an arrow. I guess you'll never be able to check this for yourself, but it's true.

Personally, I never used sense heading once they put maps in the game. Sure I saved an extra second when I was running around and had to see which way my icon was moving instead of having the arrow, but sense heading 200 doesn't make a **** bit of difference to me. Of course, I've visited pretty much every non-keyed zone more than once and can find my way around most of them without a map or sense heading either, but whatever.

How this change could possibly upset anyone baffles me. If having sense heading mapped to an arrow key and going "ooo, look I hit 200," is enough of an accomplishment that you are outraged over removing it, you seriously need to look at your perspective in life. I can think offhand of a dozen things I've done in game in the last week that will mean more to me than getting sense heading to 200 on every character EVER will.

I guess I'll break the suspense too, since Sense Heading skill ups seem to have such burning importance to people. The cross became an arrow at 195 skill.

[Maevenniia]

LOL LIlosh

On topic:

I also don’t see much ‘sense’ (bad pun, sorry) in fixing something that wasn’t broken. I do sometimes think SOE doesn’t exactly have its priorities straight - I understand wanting to attract new players but still…there already was the map and the find feature and the fact is you could buy a compass in the game that addressed the ‘swingy-ness’ of the UI compass…

…but, I had my chance to vent a while ago, and reason was quickly restored. When all is said and done, I can shrug it off, I still believe it wasn’t really a necessary change, or should have been done a bit differently, but it isn’t game breaking.

[Nihixul]

"If having sense heading mapped to an arrow key and going "ooo, look I hit 200," is enough of an accomplishment that you are outraged over removing it, you seriously need to look at your perspective in life."

people who use the arrow keys for movement need to seriously look at their perspective in life.

thanks for the advice, although i admitted to the skill's being trivial. hitting 200 wasn't like dinging 60 or getting to 200 in tailoring or anything. it was just a kinda nice thing to have finished after all those levels seeing it go up. (apparently at 195), you got the arrow, and so you had a little extra perk. it wasn't a big deal, but sheesh. it was just the thought of fixing something that wasn't broken in (what i believe to be) a misplaced effort to make the game more accessible to new players.

[Rhyianna]

tiz funny to see how many are up in arms over sense heading... which i learned how to use years and years ago lost in everfrost. (dont ask why a wee tiny high elf was wandering in that bloody ****ed cold SNOW).

it matters not to me that new players/chars now automatically know what way they are facing. perhaps all of us old players have influenced the forces that be at home to notice that the new adventurers /gasp/ can tell direction before they leave home.

are bigger fish to fry (stone silk). am very Very VERY glad over then new blue con color, (old eyes straining). hated the target spam, thank goodness my bf figured out how to turn that off. i havent seen the ring, not sure what i have broken in my ui lol, but i would like it i think for my chantress to use.

anyway.

i enjoy reading here, i love eq still after all these years (aug 1999 still on same char). i managed to get smithing to 250, then brewing to 250, trying to decide which is next. (all are at or near 200). i love the new database here, i can find things (lol i am not rhy everlost for naught).

and yes, ogres do stink. but that is why i feed them halas meat pies with freshly ground barbarians. much more tasty than that stringy skinny elf flesh .

[Serenya]

I'm in the camp who is baffled by the uproar. I've been playing since September 1st, 1999. I religously kept sense heading maxed on all of my characters. I used it and /loc to navigate. Mostly /loc though. We didn't have maps. It couldn't be tied to an arrow key,and once it could it was by tieing one of my hotkeys which I didn't want to do, nor could it be added to a hotkey as /doability 1 so I raised it by hitting it 50000 times. When the compass was added, it was amusing, but not terribly useful for those who didn't have a maxed SH, as it was only steady just after a success. When the maps were added, you got an arrow at SH of 192 (my husband confirmed it), newbies/lowbies got to hunt for that plus sign, which was annoying. Now that you can add it to hotkeys as /doability, or map it to a movement key, raising it is trivial anyway.

Frankly, as someone whose oldest character, with more then 4 years and 80 days played, is still only 53, I'm more irked by those of you who got to 60 in 4 months played as a brand new player then I could possibly be that even newer players will start with a sense heading of 200. All it really means is that sense heading has been removed from the game, and it was always a silly skill.

And because I'm sometimes a witch, my feeling is that if you maxed sense heading by mapping it to a movement key, you have ZERO grounds for complaint. You wimped out.

[Lilosh]

Originally posted by Serenya
And because I'm sometimes a witch, my feeling is that if you maxed sense heading by mapping it to a movement key, you have ZERO grounds for complaint. You wimped out.

Why, because we got a better sense of direction by walking?

How else would a person get better at finding his way around? Cast True North until Sense Heading was Maxed?


People who imply that mapping it to a movement key are somehow cheating the system, or what not are missing that.

I mean, should we have a spell called "Channelling", required to be cast specifically to raise the skill? No way. You should get better at things the more you do them.

It was perfect the way it was. If anything, SONY should have tied to it the movement keys. It would have gone up on its own, and would have been the perfect solution.


-Lilosh

[Mileron]

I admit, I was a little irritated by the change, but I'll survive... especially since it was retroactive. (Course, I only have 7 characters under 39... and four above.)

I argue the point, though, that being able to tell north from south doesn't mean squat.

I still know people who can't run their asses from Freeport to Qeynos with no books or ports.

Then there are the folks whom I care very much for who get lost relatively easy (*hugs*) but eventually find their way

[Chenier]

Cupcake opinion:

For my main, who maxed sense heading a looong time ago: /shrug...doesn't effect or bother me

For my alts, who haven't maxed sense heading: woohoo!

***
I do, however, understand why people are grumpy about it and I lavish cupcake comforts upon you. My suggestion is to accept the change or try to forget about it and move on.

Let's get SOE focused on things that are badly broken (class balancing, POT9/BOT9 not overwriting correctly, etc. etc.).

[eniamn]

i felt a little bad for my lv 40 main. that all my other toons instead of just brandnew peeps get it to 200 made me much happier. if my lv 20 alts wouldn't get it i would have ranted. on the other hand, what is the dwarven special now? they should get something. iskar still start high swiming, wood elves still get forage. both prolly more handy than sh but still. can they get a 21 in brewing to start? please. maybe smithing and brewing. you can get that hi training anyway.

edit doh. alc tol should start at 50 for dwarves if it doesn't already. and they should get a stack of ale instead of bandages.

[Auricula]

When I first read about the impending change to Sense Heading, I felt somewhere between disappointed and annoyed. Now that it has happened, I am mostly just sad about it.

I never mapped it to anything other than making it a hot button so I could click on it while medding or while waiting for a mob to pop, and it was such an easy skill to build up. Even my less-than-intelligent-and-by-no-means-wise Warrior and Monk had no problems keeping it maxed for their levels. It was the FIRST skill I ever maxed out on EQ and doing so brought a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

Because it was so easy to keep maxed per level, I also used it as a measuring stick for where my baby alts skills should be. If my Wizard had Sense Heading of 130 and her Alteration was only 90, I could quickly tell I needed to play catch up with that skill. I will miss that.

Do I think giving everyone SH at 200 has destroyed the game? Of course not.

I have come to the conclusion that what rubs me the wrong way about it the most is the feeble explanation given by Sony for the change:

"We are also working on removing one of the more tedious "features" of the game, the need to practice Sense Heading. Most folks have that skill mapped to trigger along with one of their movement keys. Not an exciting skill to practice. So we plan to have all characters start with a 200 skill in Sense Heading. This will allow new players to navigate more easily, and will reduce a bit of tedium over the course of gameplay."

Want to talk 'Not an exciting skill to practice' and 'tedious'?
Ever tried to learn languagues?
Ever tried to skill up swimming? fishing? (at least SH could be practiced anywhere)
Ever played a Monk who tried to skill up Feign Dead?
Ever played a character that needed to skill Safe Fall?

Dear Newbie: Welcome to EQ. Please be warned that tedium IS a part of the game, and only increases as you advance in levels. Get used to it.