Friday with Means - April 30th, 2010 - About the Future

Imho it's the lvl 1-200 experience that needs focus - especially the start up phase of the game could use a revamp. A game is nothing without players, and I think AO might be loosing a lot of players to poor start up content. The fr00b program was a stroke of genious, and I think it could transform even more people into paying customers if AO was a little more starter friendly. Don't confuse "starter friendly" with "easy game play" though. AO shouldn't loose it's unique feel, and should still take effort to learn to play, although that effort shouldn't correlate with time invested in grinding.

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Originally Posted by Avari

Imho it's the lvl 1-200 experience that needs focus - especially the start up phase of the game could use a revamp. A game is nothing without players, and I think AO might be loosing a lot of players to poor start up content. The fr00b program was a stroke of genious, and I think it could transform even more people into paying customers if AO was a little more starter friendly. Don't confuse "starter friendly" with "easy game play" though. AO shouldn't loose it's unique feel, and should still take effort to learn to play, although that effort shouldn't correlate with time invested in grinding.

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I think that combined with a new and upgraded newbie experience the daily missions have a lot of what it takes to keep interest high in the game. We need more small things to do like TOTW and Subway in these levels though. There's far too little actual stuff to do on the way to 200 for players. SL has interesting things, sure, but ... the handful of quests that each zone offers isn't really helping with lvling, as it's all done relatively fast or takes too long and not viewed as fun by the players. Much of it is also quite obscure and hard to figure out the location of.

One thing I'd like to see worked on is more streamlining of content like the many quests and such. By streamlining I mean making them available. It's no good that there's a ton of different quests for this and that if the quest givers are a single NPC in the middle of a tiny island in Deep Artery Valley (yes, there's a quest NPC there). Why would anyone ever go there without a specific purpose? Sure, exploration, but who sits and goes through all the map? And the quest NPC doesn't have any special indicator on the default maps. This could do with some work.
So, moving around some NPCs, or making some kind of level range related hubs for players to go and be told about places that might require their attention...

Looking forward to the new content. And here are a few things I would like to see.

Like people suggested have the starter area more simplified since the current starter island is confusing to understand.

More storyline content would be nice and finding out what happened to the people in the AO short film series would be good to know.

More Solo content would be nice for all levels since alot of the game is based around teams. A nice example of solo content would be a profession instance where a person enters and has to complete tasks which rely on their professions abilities to make it through.

Also would like to see unqiue mobs and armor upgrades for old rk content. Wondering if the Sentinel base in Mort will become an instance for clans? If not would be nice for storyline content.

More PvP areas would be nice, also adding more varieties of PVP combat would be nice.

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Originally Posted by Ragnexis

Wondering if the Sentinel base in Mort will become an instance for clans? If not would be nice for storyline content.

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More like an instance for Omni :) Sentinel are a hardcore Clans supporter clan, after all. So Omni raiding it would make sense. There's many OT bases out there that could serve a similar purpose for Clans. It would be cool :)

The most important issue in my mind is getting the new engine out, I know it's an ongoing process but I think it will do more for AO than anything else.

Other than that, new startup area with better quests so people will understand the basics of the game.

Revamping RK gameplay, sadly RK is barren which is a shame since it's such a beautifully designed place.

New AI playfield for lower levels.

Easier ways of getting VP apart from PvP, maybe daily missions will handle that.

Ofab equipment that will lvl with you, you still collect VP but "invest" it into the already bought item and it will then go up in ql.
or
Ofab vendors that will buy back the outgrown equipment with some of the spent VP's coming back to the player (25/50/75% ??).


Finally a huge thanks to the team for keeping this mmo gem alive and kicking :D

Concealment needs to get a spotting radius, if that's possible in this game, say something like 3-5m. If you get close enough you would see the player like if they had used a cloaking device, and can target them.

A lot of the RK mobs are pretty pointless as they are such low level, far too many low level areas that even froobs don't touch as by the time they have done newb island, subway, totw they have outlevelled those zones.

Go round and bump up the levels of all the rk mobs, higher level rk mobs might also pull more people away from SL heck grinding.

Oh, and please, for the love of everything sacred, change the spawn timers on HI champions and waves (champ goes down, next wave starts to pop immediately and they keep popping like twice the speed at least). Can't be that hard.

What I would like to see is a revamp of the mech mechanics. "Not as far as the OMG they need a nerf/They sux!" catigory. I'd like to see them spun off into a whole new gameplay. Allow personalized upgrading and customization of them. Or allowing "Mech Perks" that let you specialize in a particular mech. I know these were put in to be equilizers but some customization would be nice.

Second I would like to see more development in the main story line. I mean real RP. I'm only a casual player but I've not seen a lot of significant role play. Yes the breaking up of the illegal leet fighting ring was cute but does not advance the storyline of the game as a whole.

Next I'd like to see the towers revamped. Not the gas mechanics or anything like that but what they actualy do. I'd like to see different effects from Massive turrets. (Maybe their attacks are AoE) than from Fire turrets (theirs could hit then leave a fire based dot for a few ticks) This would make people think more about what they want to put on a site.

And lastly I'd like to see more significant difference in Omni and Clan. The game descriptions say omni has the better equipment but clan had better organization as OT was a bureaucracy. I'd like to see a return to this. They should be kept at the same power level but I would like them to go about getting that strength in slightly different ways.

About the new start-up experience:

For some, their first introduction to AO is when they look at the website to find out more about the game.

Information about breeds, professions, and how to get started used to be prominently displayed on the AO Website. I spent time reading through that before I ever created an account. As soon as I read the description of a Fixer, I knew I wanted to try that. It fascinated me, and was a big part of why I created my first account.

That was all removed from the website quite some time ago. I'd like to see it put back, to grab the attention of those who might be just casually browsing the site to see what AO is about.

make battlestation non sided
make scoreboard available in it
maybe even make global ladder on website that keeps track of your characters

make those and it will be enough to keep me in game and be happy with it for years

and not only me i suppose

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Originally Posted by tiralee

About the new start-up experience:

For some, their first introduction to AO is when they look at the website to find out more about the game.

Information about breeds, professions, and how to get started used to be prominently displayed on the AO Website. I spent time reading through that before I ever created an account. As soon as I read the description of a Fixer, I knew I wanted to try that. It fascinated me, and was a big part of why I created my first account.

That was all removed from the website quite some time ago. I'd like to see it put back, to grab the attention of those who might be just casually browsing the site to see what AO is about.

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I couldn't agree more with this. Gameplay videos hardly look at a wide spectrum of actual gameplay, but rather, just a single class. I always read up on the game and the game's mechanics before downloading it. To at least get a feel of whether or not it's a WoW clone, Corean port, unfinished concept, etc.

Here's an idea.

I have another idea, when you make new quests and expansions make sure the rewards are equal for each profession. In other words stop being lazy. I've come to the conclusion this is how item creation works. Someone thinks of a great item for a profession, then there's some brain storming and the quest is made time comes closer to release, and there's still a few profs that don't have a reward yet, so people scramble and just throw anything in. For example "Hmm what do do about advies? I got it Team Scheol Map" yeah that's good."

Really doing long drawn out quest for crappy rewards is a horrible incentive. Things like this could be a very good reason for players leaving.

engine
new start-up experience
advertising
mid game content
RK revamp
and just in my opinion new vehicles (not flying but with wheels and bigger)

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Originally Posted by Berinda

After that, I would suggest new animations. I'm not talking about things like running and firing weapons, but animations for all the perk actions that look like someone is throwing bread to a duck. For things like quick shot, it could be as easy as using the fling shot animation - and I bet recycling weapon attack animations and various nanobot clouds it could be done with no additional animations. All it would cost is time.

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THIS! It's annoying watching your toon with bucketloads of perks looking like it's cleaning out 10-15+ bags of loot in combat. Most importantly.. please revisit the martial arts attacks animations. If you ask me, those animations look a bit outdated and make me feel like I'm watching high school brawl. Perhaps you guys could pop in a few movies featuring Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris, Jet Li, etc and try your best to imitate an animation for their moves.
Can't be that hard, right? ;)

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Originally Posted by Means

What should we make next? Where should we spend our time that it would make the most difference/be the most fun?

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What I would like to see is for FC to begin establishing a necessary role for all professions in teams or raids. Most of the improvements and documentation I have seen is balancing for PVP content and between professions.

Most needed or teamed:

Bureaucrats = Despite what you think Means, Crats paired with a good tank replace all support, including doctors. Their mezzes are the best, and they can even mezz bosses! They also supply ample damage. I can currently tank all of Dust brigade but informant without a doctor, DB instance 1 and 2, and Pande as long as I have a good crat and the team is not full of idiots. This is with an unfinished pvm setup.

Doctors = Obviously desireable due to their shere amount of healing (more than even a team of adventurers could produce). However most doc+enf combos can get by with using heal perks and ICH only.

Enforcers = 70-80k max health and can actually hold aggro well (although getting it back once its lost is another issue)

Soldiers = Always considered the heavy damage reduction because of reflects and a high source of DD. The truth is engineers are far better than soldiers for this, but the playerbase itself doesn't realize it.

Teamed but not seen as equal:

Engineers = Better than soldiers, but that 4% reflect difference doesn't let people realize it. This is not FC's problem this is playerbase ignorance.

Shades = Strong init debuffs and a large reduction in mob AAO. With their DD some people can see the benefit to having a shade but not everyone. If shades had something more visible such as a VERY VERY short term stun proc in place of the init proc that works in all encounters (2-4 seconds non-overwritable) that would be my suggestion to make them more appealing. They would be no more beneficial, but appearances are everything.

Fixers = Teamed for runspeed, and with the new weapons you have given them, they are seeing some teaming as a quick DD replacement in some encounters. Their hots are useless for most end game encounters, they provide no real evasive benefit, and their PVP NCU wipers that could be very useful in PVM are not useable there. Even the NCU buff is unnecessary because no one needs 1000 NCU worth of buffs except in PVP.

Teamed because we have empty team slots and someone has to take it...or we are doing 12man:

Adventurer= +300 evades, is it nice? Yes. Do we need it? No. Healing is enough for good tanks? Yes. Will we invite an advy for heals when we can get a doc? No. Good DD? Not really. Good Mezzer? Not a chance. Can they offtank? Yes, but tanks don't need an offtank if they can handle three bosses at the same time. One of the best solo professions in game, but I have no clue why anyone would ever team one unless they are filling team slots.

Agent = If they could just use some of the more beneficial SL nanos, agents might have a better chance of getting teams. Great at low levels, and then their toolset hits a peak at tl5. There is no reason to team agents at tl7, unless someone can enlighten me as to what you need them for.

Keeper = 12 Man anti-fear aura. Otherwise you are almost never going to see a keeper teamed. Better DDs, better heal support, better reflect buffers or damage reducers. Given the toolset, I honestly think keepers should be made a highly viable tank alternative to enforcers and they would be just fine. Even making their nano point heal aura useful again would be nice. Unfortunately they lack anything atm that makes them a necessary choice.

Martial Artist = Crats, shades, SMG solds, SMG fixers?, engineers and NTs are all ODing MAs. Their support healing can keep you alive with a crat, but what can't. They do have excellent init debuffing, but its not visible in NCU like crat, doctor or shade debuffs. They would be excellent tanks with more taunting support but otherwise they shine as a solo prof like advy. I don't really want to be a tank on my MA though, so I'm not sure what MAs could be given to make them more viable.

Meta-Physicist = Everyone has infinite nano, CM lasts 8 hours but is hardly needed anymore, heal pet is pitiful healing in a raid, their debuffs are overwritten by profs that are in EVERY raid or team, NSD has no real neccessity in pvm...anyone else wanna chime in on this one?

Nano-Technician = Great DD, but most of the playerbase doesn't think so. -499 AAO is nice, but its only half the time. Inifinite nano has made their support lacking. They cannot share their excellent defenses. With their offense relying on casting, they can't properly support with absorbs either.

Trader = Umbral is ok when you aren't an endgame toon, and AC debuffs are nice for improving DD. Drains are PVP oriented and have very little effect in PVM. They are not team healers. I would say having umbral is nice when my NCU is wiped on my enforcer, but im self casting all my buffs without composite ability or nano buffs. I have no reason to ever team a trader unless I am an MA improving my crit damage.



Long post, but this is from the perspective of a 220 PVM enforcer. I know what I need, what I do not need, and what seems to work overly well. If your concern is keeping the current players, then PVP is not as much an issue as the PVM content. As long as players are involved in the game, and have a purpose in PVM, they tend to stick around. When players can find fun PVM combos with team setups that do not involve doctor, crat, enforcer everytime, they are more likely to do PVM content.

You are taking care of the difficulty in leveling and dependance on 220's to level, so the only other aspects are PVM diversity and PVM inclusion of each profession. With the later and leveling stages of the game ironed out, then you work on the starting experience so that new players have an enjoyable experience the whole way. Nothing is worse than spending several months to get a character to 220 only to find no one wants to team you.

Even though I am an avid PVPer, I will warn you that catering to the most vocal forums crowd, which is the pvpers, is not the proper first step in this game. Fixing major issues like OP nanos in the next patch is good, but PVP balance should not come before PVM balance. I can wait on solid pvp if it means AO can keep running, and the others should do the same.

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Originally Posted by Gatester

Agent = If they could just use some of the more beneficial SL nanos, agents might have a better chance of getting teams. Great at low levels, and then their toolset hits a peak at tl5. There is no reason to team agents at tl7, unless someone can enlighten me as to what you need them for.

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Great main/support healer if you are doing anything RK or Alien based.

Quite good main tanks in Pande using mimic Enforcer and SL Ess.

12 Man antifear totem.



Not an impressive list by any regard.

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Originally Posted by Alternity

Great main/support healer if you are doing anything RK or Alien based.

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when i was tl5 and doing city raids all the time, my team doctor was almost always a particular agent friend - and he did a great job in fp doctor as our only healing. we always felt great when we beat the admiral because those raids were challenging o.O

lately i keep meeting agents that don't have basic things like RRFE and UBT uploaded, and are almost 220.

i guess more defined roles for professions in raids is something to work on, but i think the most critical thing to work on in PVM is encouraging players to level by playing the game and having fun - giving all those funky SL quests huge XP/SK would be nice, people might do them in teams that way. i can't imagine new players sticking with AO because they think pocket teams are fun and engaging, and the pocket mentality seems to create players like the agents i mentioned above that don't have useful FP nanos.

it'd probably be better to let people buy new characters begin at level 150 or something than to let pocket teaming poison the game for new players. i understand why people do it though, they've been playing ao a long time and don't want/need to do it again. /shrug

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Originally Posted by tiralee

About the new start-up experience:

For some, their first introduction to AO is when they look at the website to find out more about the game.

Information about breeds, professions, and how to get started used to be prominently displayed on the AO Website. I spent time reading through that before I ever created an account. As soon as I read the description of a Fixer, I knew I wanted to try that. It fascinated me, and was a big part of why I created my first account.

That was all removed from the website quite some time ago. I'd like to see it put back, to grab the attention of those who might be just casually browsing the site to see what AO is about.

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This is an understatement.

It does not matter if Anarchy Online is the best game on the planet or the worst game on the planet. If the information on a game's website is outdated & uninformative, most will not bother to take the time to download the game.

Anarchy-Online.Com is a terrible source for information about the game. We keep hearing about how this team or that team has taken over the website, yet we do not see changes, aside from occasionally an update of a forums post from weeks ago will be posted as "current news". A single "news" post on the website in the last 5 months is NOT how you show a game as still being alive & thriving. Enough is enough.

If a thread is started anywhere in the Announcements section of the forums, it should AUTOMATICALLY show up on the website at the same time. It is not a time limitation issue. It is an issue of someone not wanting to be bothered with less than an hour of their time. There are probably 50-100 people on these forums that could create the script for that in less than 10 minutes.

Putting "if you want news, go to the forums" in the launcher is a cop out too. The launcher is nothing but a web page with limited viewable space. If nothing else, set up a RSS feed to AUTOMATICALLY put the latest forums Announcements thread titles there with a link to the forums page. Speaking of the launcher, the Xan advertisement gif lags out the launcher page when starting the client. It is only 64kb. There is absolutely no reason why a file so small should do that. Find a better host for it, or remove it. I am 100% certain it is not a problem on my end. Since I started playing AO in 2004, I have used dial-up, satellite & DSL from a total of 5 different ISPs on a total of 8 different computers & all have experienced issues at one time or another with the banner on the launcher lagging, causing nothing but a blank white launcher page when logging in.

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Originally Posted by Means

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Originally Posted by Lheann

11. The AO web site is a failure on so many levels. A current Game Suggestion I submitted about the version linked for download is a clear inidcator of minor things that make entry to AO easier for new players. Is there any real effort to address the web site and bring it up to date? Dead links to fan sites and news links that are years out of date are a few of the problems. If I did not play the game I could beleive it was a dead game.

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Yes

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Originally Posted by Means

We are not "responsible" for the operations side of the website...but as the person who was contacted concerning the vulnerability it was definitely my duty to make sure it was followed through and fixed by contacting and harassing the people required to do the actual "work" on this issue...at the end of the day everything AO related is my responsibilty in terms of "big picture" issues.

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I tried doing a search for the thread where Means stated that they had taken responsibility of the content of the website from the marketing team, but it could not be found using this forum's search feature. It was at least a year ago.

Means,
Problems with the content of the website is an issue that has been going on for years. A year ago the community provided LOTS of good ideas here. Please stop giving us excuses for the years of missing content &/or updates & just turn the current site into a general "This is AO" & add a Wiki feature. Give the forums mods admin rights to the wiki & let the community show you how it is done. There are MANY big budget MMORPGs out there that have a company hosted wiki, why can't Funcom do it too?